


Illness

by Azure_K_Mello



Series: Scrutiny and Speculation: The Media Series [6]
Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azure_K_Mello/pseuds/Azure_K_Mello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set four years after “Young and Beautiful” Clark is kidnapped, injured and the whole thing is televised.</p><p>Clark’s Age: 38</p><p>Note: This is the sixth in a series. If you haven’t read the other parts you will miss some of the references.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illness

The media maelstrom after Australia and Clark’s press conference afterwards took Superman out of the limelight. The press left him alone. He still did the occasional mugging but he was left to himself. It was as though, until Clark shouted at them, the reporters hadn’t realized just how rude they were being. 

There was a video of him on the internet, walking with Ignatius, not paying attention to teenagers with a camera, singing along with his headphones that were pumping out that really catchy song Kryptonite. It was a bit of a stir. A Metropolis reporter, who was both polite and didn’t fear his no trespass signs, asked why he was singing the song that “glorified the crystal that could kill him”. 

Clark had smiled and responded, “It’s not about Kryptonite; it’s about love and the fact that we all need someone. It’s a great song. Plus, y’know, I can sing it and seems like it’s about me. ‘Cause it sort of is, fictionally or metaphorically or possibly literally… whatever. And it’s funny cause I can sing it around Lex and be like, ‘if I go crazy yeah will you still call me Superman?’ And he says no because if someone has a psychotic brake you shouldn’t call them by their alter ego’s name because that makes it more confusing.”

That was the last time Clark made headlines for anything stupid and personal. Every once in while he would turn up on the news, pictured with the JLA but unlike the rest he wouldn’t be wearing some stupid costume, just jeans and a tee shirt. Now, four years later, only Lex was making headlines. LLC was introducing a new modification on particle accelerators. It was all over the publications, not only the mainstream papers and business reports but also science journals all over the world.

People had flown into the Keys for the presentation. Lex had wanted to introduce the project on his own stomping grounds. But things were worrying Lex. He walked in smiling tightly as people took their seats. 

“Morning, if you will open your hand outs to-”

The intercom beeped, “Lex?”

“Yes, Mercy?”

“Jacob and Mrs. Little just called. He’s getting worse. Mrs. Kent will be here in an hour and a half. But Mrs. Little thinks he needs an IV and he won’t let her near him.”

Lex bit his inner cheek. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry for your inconvenience. My husband hasn’t been ill like this… ever. Injured yes but not ill… I have to go. David Martin, my second, will walk you through the procedures and outlines. Again, I’m sorry about this.” One hundred and thirty of the most influential people in business watched as Lex collected his briefcase. “You’re all here for the week. We’ll, um, start an hour earlier tomorrow.” 

In the history of the company this had happened once before. Todd Delton had been in the room some twenty-five years before when Lionel had announced that he needed to leave because his wife was ill. Two hours later Todd Delton had seen Lionel in downtown Metropolis with a young blonde woman. And so he wasn’t sure he believed Lex now. The set up had been the same, a large group of very important business people, a new technology, and a supposedly ill spouse. 

Everyone had known that Lillian Luthor was dying and no one had been offended that Lionel walked out. Instead they were pleased that the man they all thought was a cold bastard was, in fact, more concerned about his wife than money. He had profited as people had viewed him as a kinder, better man than they had in the past. Todd thought it was disgusting of Lex to use his supposedly ill husband to build suspense over his advancement or to look better; he was to have shown them a presentation of the new technology that afternoon. Instead he was striding out of the room looking determined. Todd Delton sat back to listen to David outline the project. 

Lex rushed home, across the islands highway, to Key Largo to find his husband, passed out on the couch. He crossed the room to crouch down and feel Clark’s forehead. But the moment he touched his husband Lex’s hand was slapped away. Clark’s eyes opened with fear. “Don’t touch- Lex.”

“Hi, baby.”

“The doctor, Lex, she tried to hurt me.”

“What doctor, Clark?”

“The woman in white. She’s gone now. She had needles. And a nurse, he wore all white too. But she was in charge.”

“Clark, that was Mrs. Little. She’s been our chef for nine years. She wears white because she takes her profession seriously. The needle was for those IV bags we have. You’re dehydrated and running a very high fever. You’re hallucinating. Jacob’s our butler. He’s wearing white because he’s hot.”

“You think he’s pretty?” Clark sounded hurt. 

“No, baby, warm. It’s a hot day and he’s warm so he’s wearing white. You’re the only pretty person I see.” He stroked Clark’s face. “You are boiling.”

“Hotter than Jacob?”

“By a good five degrees. Do you have ice packs?”

“The doctor gave me some. But they had kryptonite in them, so I threw them at her.”

“You threw ice packs at Mrs. Little? Clark, she’s not a doctor. It’s not even her job to take care of you. She was helping you and you threw ice packs at her! I know you’re ill but please don’t throw things at people. It’s impolite.” 

“Okay.” Clark leaned off the couch and dropped his head onto Lex’s shoulder. “You still like me, Lex?”

“You smell like vomit and sweat. You look like a drugged out hooker. You’ve managed to make everyone abandon you in the living room. But yes. I still like you.” Lex stroked Clark’s hair. “Lie back, I’m going to go get ice packs, a thermometer, and that IV.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No, Clark. It’ll be a little pinch and then you’ll feel a little better.” He kissed Clark’s forehead as he moved Clark more firmly onto the sofa. 

In the kitchen he saw Mrs. Little. “I am so sorry,” he said. 

“I was pelted with freezer packs. I’ve been in a lot of strange situations in the past. But I have never before been pelted with freezer packs.” She started laughing. “What can I do to help?”

“You aren’t mad?”

“I raised four boys. This is actually pretty funny.”

“You can have the day off, if you like.”

“Lex, be serious. I might be your chef but Clark’s dangerously ill. Moreover, he vomited all over Jacob and called him a girly man-nurse so I think he’s out in the garden avoiding everything. I don’t think he wants me near him but I can help.”

Lex gave up and asked, “Do you know where the thermometer is?”

She pulled it out of the cupboard next to the microwave as Lex grabbed the ice packs from the freezer. He slipped the thermometer into his pocket as he took an IV bag out of the meds cabinet. “Thank you,” he said with full arms heading back to the living room. “Clark, would I ever hurt you?” he asked. 

“No.” Clark shook his head listlessly back and forth against the sofa cushion. 

“Okay, then. I’m going to put this needle into your arm and it’s going to put some liquid into your vein so that you don’t need to drink or eat. It’s got calories and water and stuff you need. Because every time you drink you puke and your body is thirsty. Okay?” He asked as he hooked the IV bag onto the lamp shade and eyed the prominent vein in Clark’s arm.

“I trust you.”

Lex easily hit the vein and, yet again, his ill spent teenage years didn’t seem so stupid. “Did that hurt?” he asked. 

Clark shook his head. “Tell the llamas to go away.”

Lex looked around the empty room and said, in what Clark called his “commander in scary” voice, “Clark Kent is tired and you aren’t helping matters. Leave, all of you, before I call security. Get out you freeloaders.”

“Thank you.” Lex slid the ice packs around Clark’s body and slid the thermometer under his tongue. 

He sat silently on the floor rubbing Clark’s arm gently. “Open up.” He took the thermometer and had time to register that it read 107.9 degrees Fahrenheit before Clark vomited bright green bile all over his shirt and pants. “Dude… that was kind of disgusting. I’m gonna go get changed.” He slid off the floor and squelched off to the laundry room where he threw his clothes, covered in stomach bile, into the machine and put on his squash clothes. Coming back he said, “You can vomit on me now; you know I hate squash.” 

“You really do,” agreed Clark. “But those are your favorite pants.”

“It’s okay. I’m sure it’ll wash out.” He said, picking Clark up a little so he could slid beneath him.

“It’s purple cashmere.”

“Lilac,” corrected Lex.

“It’s not going to wash out.”

“Well then, I’ll wear them while barbequing.”

“You don’t barbeque.”

“Yeah well, I just won’t wear them then. I only like them because you brought them from Germany for me after that huge pile up on the autobahn… plus they’re lilac.”

“Yeah,” Clark shut his eyes and started to snore softly after a few moments which made Lex smile. He stroked his husband’s hair gently and cursed which ever alien race was responsible for this.

Two days before a broken down, old, abandoned spaceship had hit the atmosphere. Which would have been fine. The metal was soft, pliant, and had burned up the moment it touched the gas around earth. But its fuel was an emulsion of liquid red, green, blue, and silver kryptonite. Lex could throttle the bastards… if they had necks… which he wasn’t sure they did. Really, who the hell knows what aliens who are stupid enough to use kryptonite as a fuel look like? It would take a few days for the now gaseous kryptonite to burn out. 

He was pleased that his paranoid streak had caused him to ask Clark for a blood sample after the exploding vase incident. He hadn’t wanted to take Clark’s blood, had never wanted to study him. But he had looked at the blood, studied it, figured out what made Clark tick and had formulated the IV bags in case he was ever hurt again. The bags had been put together in Lex’s own lab, by his own hands, because he didn’t want anyone to know what Clark needed. If they knew what he needed they could work backward and figure out what he was made of. 

The doorbell rang and Clark rolled away. The bell went again and Lex remembered that Jacob was avoiding the house and pushed Clark gently off his lap. Opening the front door Lex saw a man whose name Lex searched for. “Mr. Dalton, hello.”

Todd took in Lex’s squash outfit and was pleased he’d brought such a huge bouquet of flowers. This was going to be good. He was about to out Lex as a liar when a pathetic, “Lex,” came from behind him. 

Lex sighed, “Mr. Dalton, do come in. Those are beautiful orchids.”

Off kilter Todd reclaimed his sensibility and said, “I thought if any man was manly enough to receive flowers it would have to be Clark Kent.” 

Lex forced a laugh. “Clark.”

“Lex, am I dying?” asked Clark as he rolled back onto his side. 

“No, Clark, you have a very high fever, trouble breathing, you keep vomiting, and you’re having hallucinations, but you are not dying.” 

“Is he a hallucination?” he asked pointing at Todd Dalton.

“No, no. This is Mr. Todd Dalton. He brought you flowers because you’re manly and ill.”

“Is he a doctor?”

“No, he’s not going to even try and touch you. He’s hopefully going to be a client; he’s here to see the particle accelerator.”

“Did you like it?” asked Clark perking up a little. There was an awkward silence and Clark said, “Oh, Lex, you didn’t put it off!”

“You threw stuff at Mrs. Little and needed an IV. Mr. Dalton, please sit down. Would you like a drink?” He moved to the bar, put the flowers in a vase, and fixed two glasses of orange juice and tonic water.

“You’ve been excited for weeks about today,” said Clark, struggling to sit up. “So instead you come home early and I vomit all over your favorite pants and put on ugly clothes so I can vomit at will.” 

“Everyone’s here for a week there are all sorts of technology conferences going on down here. They can wait until tomorrow, once your mom comes this afternoon you’ll have someone you can’t throw things at, I’ll go back to work tomorrow.” He handed Todd a drink and sat down next to Clark, who instantly dropped his head onto Lex’s shoulder. 

“So, Mr. Dalton, are you excited for the demonstration? It’s really amazing. I’m getting one for my birthday. It’s going to be great. But a llama bit me.”

“Clark, the llamas were a hallucination.”

“Will Dad be mad at me?” He asked curling into Lex. He slumped down Lex’s chest and pooled into Lex’s lap. Lex watched the top of Clark’s head as he tried to formulate an answer. How could he tell the man who’d given the eulogy that his father had died years prior? His mouth felt like sand paper as he swallowed.

“Why would he be mad?”

“I run around in a stupid outfit saving people and he told me on the phone that I need to be less conspicuous and spend more time on my school work.”

“Baby, that was years ago. You’re over heated head is getting confused. He’s very proud of you.”

“So why isn’t he coming with Mom?” 

“He just can’t come. I’m sorry.” 

Clark sighed, turned over in Lex’s lap and went back to dozing. Turning to Todd, Lex said softly, “Mr. Dalton, it was very kind of you to bring Clark flowers. But, may I ask why you’re here? We’ve never spoken outside of the few business deals we’ve had.”

Todd Dalton thought quickly and said, “I was at a meeting years ago where your father left under similar circumstances.”

“Ah, well, my father may have left the meeting but I can promise that he didn’t come home. It was a calculated move, I am sure.” Looking Todd Dalton over he continued, “But you knew that. Which is why you looked so pleased when I opened the door in sporting wear.” He laughed a dry laugh. “I’m not my father’s son.”

Clark seemed to surface slightly as he patted Lex’s thigh and said sleepily, “The magnificent bastard is dead now.” Lex laughed softly. 

Todd Dalton looked like a deer caught in the head lights of Lex’s Jaguar. “Mr. Luthor-”

“If the tables were turned I would have done the exact same thing. Although I would have most likely used Anthuriums and Lilies of the Valley. I’m glad you came, no matter the reason. He’s completely out of it but I think he likes being treated like Lex Luthor’s spouse as opposed to Superman. Flowers from an associate would please and amuse him very much if he was able to stay focused.” 

They spoke for a few more minutes about why Todd wanted a particle accelerator, what he would use it for. Finally Todd stood saying, “I should go, leave you to take care of Mr. Kent.” He took a breath, wondering if he was about to say something inappropriate, “I’m pleased I came, if for the wrong reasons, I’m glad you proved me so very wrong.” Lex started to shimmy to get out from under Clark but Todd held up a hand, “Please. Mr. Luthor, don’t get up. I’ll show myself out.”

Jacob cleared his throat as he came, quietly as ever, into the room. “Lex, I’m going to go and pick up Mrs. Kent. And I’m taking Ignatius.” The last statement is Jacob asserting himself. Ignatius rarely left the house without Lex or Clark. 

Lex tried not to smile as he said, “He vomited all over you and insulted your masculinity. Take the dog and expect an apology. And if he wakes up and misses Ignatius I will inform him that it’s your right.”

Jacob nodded and showed Todd Dalton to the door as he grabbed the keys to the Lexus he preferred to drive. Lex relaxed into the couch and turned on the stock market, he had the channel muted and sat watching the numbers. 

Mrs. Little came in holding a glass of grapefruit juice and the most gorgeous sandwich Lex could have asked for, taramosalata on thick, freshly baked bread, with thick slices of cucumber. “You are truly beneficent.” He bit into the sandwich, almost growling at the fantastic texture. He hadn’t eaten since last night, too excited that morning, too worried ever since. 

“How’s he doing?”

His brow furrowed. “He’s worried his father is mad at him and believes llamas are biting him.”

“Oh, Lex.” It had been splashed all over the society pages. Lex Luthor, who had not attended his father’s funeral, was present at Jonathan Kent’s. He had come to the funeral with his twenty year old lover, holding hands. The two had never, in public, touched in any way that could have been questioned. Lex had worried about Clark’s image. 

All the questions as to why Lex Luthor turned up at every prominent happening with some farm grown kid had stopped. The two never spoke about their relationship. There were whispers, accusations, but never a word from the pair. Two years later the papers spoke of the pair’s small wedding. They all assumed Lex was slumming, playing at something that he would grow out of, so no one complained much. They simply laughed derisively about the situation, and pitied poor, sad journalist Clark Kent, behind the two men’s backs.

Everyone had thought it would last a couple of years and burn out. No one expected it to make it even to the seven year itch. But here they were after sixteen years of marriage. The public liked Lex less then they had when he was young and more than they had when they thought he was Superman’s arch nemesis. 

So Lex sat, alone save for his sleeping husband, and waited for Martha. When she arrived it was all a flurry of motion. She walked in, with Ignatius hot on her heals, the dog was barking and Clark stirred. “Mom?”

“Hi, honey, Lex.” She wasted no time and crouched to check his pulse and feel his head. “How do you feel?”

“Lex says I won’t die.” He saw Jacob and said, “I’m sorry about before.”

“You have an incredibly high fever; it’s fine.” 

The evening was spent taking care of Clark as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He repeatedly asked for Jonathan and Lex just kept assuring him that his dad wasn’t angry but couldn’t be there. Martha told Lex before bed that he had to go to work tomorrow, to show off his achievement. And Lex went to sleep with Clark packed in a thermo blanket and ice, his IV bag hanging from the headboard. In the morning his filled their huge bathtub with ice water and left Clark under Martha’s care. 

In the office, Lex strode into the meeting room smiling and said, “Good morning. I will be holding the demonstration in a half hour. You all viewed the specs yesterday. If you have questions now’s the time and do, please, help yourselves to breakfast. After this morning’s demonstrations and lunch I must go back home. Clark’s situation isn’t improving.”

“Is he alright?” asked Todd.

“Ah.” Lex explained to the room, “Mr. Dalton came over yesterday afternoon.” To Todd he said, “He isn’t getting any worse. His temperature has stabilized about 108, which isn’t good. He’s all hallucinations and vomit. He threw up on the dog this morning. The problem is, as it’s not an infection, his body isn’t being usefully heated. It can’t fight this off; it just needs to wait it out. So, it’s worrying. He needs to cool down. But his mom is here so he’s a little calmer. 

“If any of you have questions later in the day you can call or stop by the house. Phillip Laundries’ presentation of his companies’ new gene sequencing program is at two. He’s sending cars to your hotels at a quarter to for any interested parties.” 

He answered questions for a while then grabbed some breakfast of his own. Bruce Wayne sidled up to him, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner.” His voice wasn’t quiet and Lex took the hint: this was a conversation designed for the room at large.

“That Joker was ravaging your town. It would be infeasible for a CEO and favorite son to leave before Batman had him put away and the city was back in order. I know you’re doing this whole conference circuit but can you hang around a bit?”

“Lucius Fox is here,” he nodded towards his vice president across the room, “He understands more of this stuff than me. You know that, I’m just a party boy made good.” Lex nearly laughed at that. Bruce was the only boy at school who beat Lex in the sciences. But this was the act and Lex wasn’t outside of it, not intended to be taken in. It was comfortable to be inside the façade with his closest and oldest friend. “I’m here for you. By the way, that crazy freak broke into my house last night.”

“Joker broke into your house?” Lex eyes widened and he worried that Bruce had been found out.

“No, Batman. He scared the hell out of me, I screamed like a girl. But he wanted me to get this to you.” He pulled an inhaler out of his pocket. “Said that he and the mars man knocked it up. It’s an inhaler of some kind a lead stuff, ionized gas or something. It should bond to the kryptonite in Clark’s lung and neutralize it. Of course, in Clark’s state it could also give him bad lead poisoning so it a last resort thing. He said they could fix Clark’s lungs in the Watch Tower but they can’t cure heart failure. Y’know, that Batman sets my teeth on edge. At first I thought he was being funny but he’s mostly just scary.”

“That’s Clark’s friend you’re disparaging there.”

“And I’m not saying he’s bad or anything, just that he’s creepy as hell.”

Lex pocketed the inhaler. “Thank him for me.”

“I’m actually hoping I never see him again. He made me nervous.” A couple of people standing near them chuckled and Bruce gave them a sheepish grin. To them he said, “He’s terrifying. On the news he’s a useful, sullen guy in a silly getup. When he’s standing in your study he’s this hulking madman who speaks far too calmly to be actually calm.”

Lex smiled and ate his citrus salad as he and Bruce discussed Chloe’s latest escapades that very nearly got her shot but also got her yet another byline. That Alfred was at his wits end chasing Cecily but spoiled her more than he had Bruce and that she called him Granddad. And once people were done with breakfast Lex led them to the room where the machine was set up. He did a full demonstration of the new version of the particle accelerator. People were instantly enamored and wanted one of their own and Lex was discussing it with people. Bruce came over and loudly asked very complicated questions. 

In a great mood Lex laughed, “Mr. I-don’t-understand-science shows his true colors.”

“You know I can’t miss this chance to grill you.”

Lex answered all of his questions and the follow ups with concise and technical answers that had Bruce and the room nodding. Some people wandered away, CEOs who wanted one for their RandD departments but didn’t actually understand the importance and complexities of the machine.

“I want three, one for headquarters, one for Edge City, and one just to play with.”

Lex knew the third would go to the Watch Tower. But it didn’t matter the Wayne Industries would pay as the company was wholly privately owned and there were no stock holders to explain actions to. “Clark’s building a safe room in the Fortress for his. He said he’ll be working with unstable particles. I shudder to think. He already has four experiments set up with tomes of notes.”

“His birthday’s not for two more months,” Bruce sounded genuinely worried. 

Lex shrugged just as Mercy’s voice came from the wall unit. “Lex?”

“Yes?”

“There’s been a break in at your house. All of security and Mrs. Kent have been shot with some alien tec weapon. And Clark’s missing.”

“What?” Lex was going grey and Bruce lunged forward to grab Lex’s elbows before the other man could collapse. 

“They’re being taken over to Key West Outlook.”

“I’ll drive,” said Bruce softly. Lex gave a weak nod. Speaking to the room Bruce said, “David Marin can direct you to the sales representatives.” He led his nearly catatonic friend out of the room with a nod to Fox. In the car he said, “He’ll be okay.”

“He’s ill, Bruce.”

“If they’re really alien maybe their taking him out of the atmosphere to help him.”

“And they shot eleven people just to be clever? Don’t try to placate me.”

Bruce lapsed into silence. As he pulled up to the emergency room he said, “The Justice League stands behind you, Alex. We’ll do everything we can. Will you be able to get in while I park?”

Lex nodded and stepped out of the car on mostly stable legs. Bruce watched Lex enter the building before going to the lot. There was already press crowding around the entrance shouting questions. Lex looked at them and said softly but clearly, “Get some dignity.”

Inside he saw faces of husbands and wives all of whom he knew and the Flash and Wonder Woman leaning against the wall. He moved to them and asked, “How are they?”

“Unconscious, burn marks, but stable with good vitals. J’onn is studying them, trying to figure out what the weapon was, see if we can know learn who did this,” said Flash.

Diana added, “GL and Hawkgirl are at the Watch Tower trying to trace the ship.”

“Can the League afford you all doing this?” asked Lex feeling numb. 

“Now that we’re unlimited, lots of people have taken over our posts.” It was disconcerting to see Wally so calm. “Why don’t you go see Mrs. Kent?”

A nurse started walking towards them and Lex pulled out a credit card. “Don’t bill these people. Anything their insurance doesn’t cover charge to me.”

She nodded, “Mrs. Kent’s in room four, we’re about to transfer her to ICU but you can go in.” 

“Thank you,” he nodded and started to walk away. He saw Bruce and nodded towards the corridor before leaving. J’onn was in the room when Lex walked in, “Hello.”

“Lex, I hope you don’t mind. The families were getting nervous around my machines. All of the victims have the same readings so I’m performing the follow ups on Mrs. Kent.” 

Even on J’onn’s alien features Lex could see both the anger and sadness on his face. “J’onn, is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Then why are you so mad?”asked Lex his voice near deadly. “What aren’t you saying?”

“She’ll be fine, Lex. I just… I do not like seeing Mrs. Kent this way. You remember that year when we first started the Justice League? Clark was in college still. And it was Christmas and your father wanted you some place. Everyone had plans for Christmas and I was going to stay at the Tower. I did not appreciate Earth’s holidays yet…” 

His voice trailed off and Lex knew what the man was not saying, his wife, children, and race were dead. And, though it had been five hundred years, he was only just starting to fully grieve and understand what had happened. “But Clark made me go home with him. And, while he had given Mrs. Kent my measurements for a sweater and told them that I was interested in astronomy because they wanted to make sure I had Christmas gifts, it was clear he hadn’t said anything about my appearance. It would never occur to Clark to warn his parents that I was a Martian because he never thought of such things mattering.

“Her eyes betrayed her surprise but she said, ‘Mr. J’onzz it’s so nice to finally meet you. Is it Mr. J’onzz or is your planet like China where the last names come first?’ She was speaking loudly and I didn’t understand. I told her to please call me J’onn. And then Mr. Kent came to say hello. And I realized that she was speaking loudly to prepare him so that he wouldn’t be shocked or scream when he saw me. And they kept feeding me, and talking to me, and I helped Mr. Kent fix that awful Deere tractor they had back then, and it was the first time I felt anything near happy or normal in five hundred years. So, while she is fine, I am not happy about her being this way.” He looked at the burn and flinched. J’onn was deeply frightened by fire as any burn was very dangerous for him and he said, “I have a salve at the Tower that will heal that. I shall fetch it when I am done here. The others… they don’t trust me so they mightn’t want their spouses to have it if it comes from me. Perhaps you could say it is a LLC invention.”

“Or,” said Lex, “they can see the results on Martha and ask you themselves. I would not take credit for your work. Nor will I pander to their ignorance.”

J’onn gave him a weak smile. “I have my readings; I will give them to the computer for analyzing. I shall return soon.” He squeezed Lex’s shoulder and faded into nothing. 

A nurse came in to transport Martha to ICU and Lex walked with her. They passed rooms in the hall filled with people Lex knew. As he watched them sit next to their loved ones he knew he had to go talk to them. But he couldn’t leave Martha. To the nurse he said, “Would you mind, when you get a second, sending Bruce Wayne up here?”

She faltered. “Only family is supposed to be in here.” 

“Okay, but Martha’s my mother-in-law and Bruce is my best friend. I need someone to be sitting with her while I go and check in with the families of the people who were shot at my house. So, under the circumstances, would that be alright?”

She smiled understandingly, “Yes, I’ll fetch him for you.”

Lex sat down next to her bed and held her hand. He felt hot as hell, and sort of ill, and he tried to calm down. Bruce walked in silently and sat down on her other side. He didn’t say anything. He watched the strange rhythm of Lex’s chest and knew what he was doing. Lex breathed in deeply and exhaled shallowly until he said, “Okay.”

“Any better?”

“No, not all. But I need to go.”

“I’ll be here, don’t worry.”

Lex stood and walked to the next room where Hal Stent’s wife was sitting at her husband’s side. “Myra, hello.”

“Lex,” she started to rise and Lex put out a hand.

“Please, don’t get up. I’m so sorry about this.”

“Your friend said he was fine. He knew working for you might be dangerous. I’m not mad. I’m sorry about Clark.”

“Thank you. Do you need anything?”

She said no and Lex left a few moments later. The conversation was the same in every room. Except in Rita’s. Her mother was in El Salvador Lex whipped out his cell phone, “Mercy? Rita Perez, did you send a jet?”

“Her mother should be here in eight hours.”

“Can you cancel that? Flash can get her.”

“Of course, is there anything I can do?”

“No just… I don’t know, keep me updated or something.”

“Absolutely. We’ve had one hundred and fourteen orders thus far for the machine.”

“Thanks, I, um.”

“You don’t really care,” she said understandingly. 

“I can’t summon the energy for that. Sorry.”

“No of course. Don’t worry. I can cover all this. And when you’re ready and Clark’s home safe, I’ll celebrate with you.”

“Thanks.” He hung up and walked out to the waiting room. Mercy didn’t even question whether or not Clark would be back, or if Lex was okay. To her it was obvious: Clark would be back and Lex was not okay. And Lex felt deeply grateful to her that she didn’t press him for words on subjects to which she had already decided the answers. Going immediately to Diana and Wally he asked, “Wonder Woman can you cover this sentry duty by yourself for a half hour?” She nodded. “Then Flash would you do me a favor and run to El Salvador?”

“Rita’s mom?”

“Yeah.”

“She moved since Rita’s sister had the baby?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll be back in twenty minutes unless she hasn’t packed a bag. In which case I’ll pack for her and it will take twenty-one and a half minutes.”

Lex studied him for a moment, “Why the extra thirty seconds?”

“She might have hats that match her dresses.”

Lex nodded thinking that Wally was possibly the gayest strait man Lex had ever met. Wally thought of hats and had an obsession with iced mochas. He thought they were the key to getting into women’s pants but he drank them when no one was around. But he would never point that out because Wally was kind of touchy about it. “Thanks for this.”

Wally shook his head, “Rita tried to teach me how to play chess without laughing at me.”   
He was off in a blur.

Turning to Diana he asked, “Would you like a cup of coffee or anything?”

“No, Lex, I’m fine. Go back to Martha.” Lex nodded and went to sit next to Bruce. 

Bruce said nothing. Relinquishing Martha’s hands Bruce sat back a little. Eventually he said, “This isn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t say it was,” Lex replied not meeting his eye.

“Fuck you, Alex. You don’t need to say it. You went to work even though you didn’t want to, you felt like you were palming off your husband on his mother, and now everyone is shot and Clark’s missing. Clark is supposed to be indestructible so when he gets the sniffles you fly his mother down.” His voice was getting louder. “You freaked out over a fever! Something unconnected happened and now you’re acting like it’s your fault and like you shot these people. If you had stayed home you would have lost billions of dollars and you would be lying in the bed next to Martha’s. And then you couldn’t have done anything.”

Lex shouted right back. “I can’t do anything anyway! I’m offering people goddamned coffee! And who cares about the goddamn money? Yeah, we would have lost a lot of money if we hadn’t done the presentation this week but someone else could have done it. I was showing off because I was really proud as I did it all. But the fact is it still belongs to the company. So that’s on me. As for my over reacting: he was so hot an Earth human would have been dead, he couldn’t stop vomiting, and he kept asking for his dead father! So no, no, Bruce. Fuck you. Because while I might not have been able to do anything I’m allowed to be angry at myself and at you. If you’d been here you would know it wasn’t fucking sniffles. You’re new unlimited amount of friends couldn’t have covered your stuff in Metropolis? I called you two days ago, Bruce, and you get here this morning! I asked you for help. I asked you for help. I haven’t done that since I was sixteen. You were putting your shit first too. Clark needed me; I needed you. So right now? I feel like we both dropped the fucking ball!”

Bruce watched him as Lex breathed in slowly. “A bit better?”

Lex nodded, “Much, thank you. Much. I needed to shout.”

“I know. You want to go punch some paparazzi? A few broken noses and you’ll be back at the top of your game.” 

“Can’t stand up, knees too weak.”

“You really enjoy shouting much too much. It’s a character flaw.”

“Says the guy who runs around in a cowl.” 

Bruce laughed and patted Lex’s knee, “I’ll get us coffee.”

J’onn faded into being and held out the cream. Lex nodded. “Hi, J’onn. Go ahead, and thank you for this.” 

J’onn gave him another one of his odd smiles and pulled Martha’s hospital gown away from her shoulder and applied the balm in gentle circles. The burn faded and J’onn left to help the other. Bruce came in with coffee just as a strange light came over the room and Lex turned to see a screen materializing behind with faces on it. The faces reminded him of Clark’s fortress in that the features’ angles weren’t quite right, none of it matched up. They looked like something out of a nightmare. 

Lex stood slowly and asked, “Where is he?”

“Do you know who we are?”

“You’re the individuals who shot my people and stole my husband. You’re cowards who waited until he was sick, until the chef, butler, and I were out of the house and attacked. Outside of that, I don’t really care.”

“We made him sick.”

“What?”

“For those of you who don’t know, two days ago an apparent piece of space junk hit the atmosphere filled with gaseous kryptonite. Clark Kent has been incapacitated and Alexander Luthor has been scared witless.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked Lex wondering if they were mad as well as evil. 

“We are sending this conversation out to your world in every language. Do you know, eighty percent of people with access to televisions that were broadcasting news from that hospital were watching? Everyone treats your husband and you like a spectator sport. Of course, a small percentage were concerned, most just think of it as entertainment. But now this conversation is being projected to every individual on Earth.”

“You really aren’t endearing yourself to me at all.”

“We do not need to. We have your Clark Kent. And while the world believes that you are an opportunist, believes that your marriage is motivated by some agenda, we know the truth. We have watched your civilization for thousands of years. We know everything about every individual on your planet. And we know you, Alexander Luthor, better than you could ever know yourself. We know how intelligent you are. You believe you are clever, believe that you must be in the top five percent. But, in fact, other than a man of no import or distinguish in India, who will die sometime in the next three months, you are the most intelligent human being on Earth. Yet you make some of the worst decisions because of him. 

“Do you know that you were months away from curing all cancer when he told you that the meteorite harmed him? And you destroyed it all. Yes, your research was unstable and dangerous but you would have found the cure if you had continued. The cure never would have been approved by the government yet you would still have done it. But the boy Kent was more important. The time he fell in the volcano during the eclipse when he had so little power and was in a coma for weeks you didn’t go to a technology meeting. There you would have met a man and together would have discovered the particle that makes up the electron of an atom. 

“He is nothing but a liability to you. He causes you untold pain. His computer stretched your life so that you will live longer than any human being ever has or will. And the idea sickens you. It isn’t right and Bruce Wayne, Mercy Graves, and Martha Kent the three people who it will break you to lose will die long before you. You will live with that. All the others, that family your husband has pulled together around you, they will all die and you will grieve for them. You wouldn’t have had to do this if it weren’t for him. Not only would you have had the normal life span of a human but you wouldn’t have cared. You shut yourself up so well after Perry White cleverly interviewed you when you were sixteen that you just didn’t care about people anymore. And then there was your Clark and warmth and family. So you didn’t beat the machine down or argue. Instead you traded your mortality for the promise that his computer would protect the people he loved, give them happier lives. You accepted it because your Clark Kent shouldn’t be alone.”

“How dare-”

“Be quiet, Alexander Luthor. We have your husband, so be quiet. The only reason you’ve spoken this long is that you hope we will keep our attention on you before turning to him. You’re almost correct. We have been educating him. But our later plans start after this conversation. So the longer we talk the longer he has. He is a liability to you, you worry about him, even without sun spots or accidents you worry all the time when he is off do gooding. Because you are the only person who knows the truth, what he never told the Kents or the Justice League. He isn’t really invulnerable. Oh sure, as he said to the Green Lantern ‘I’m the invulnerable one. Every punch I take is one they don’t have to.’ It’s true that it won’t break him the way it will them. But, he feels human pain.

“When he puts out those fires with his hands he is on fire and feels it as any man would. When he holds together the widening schism during an earthquake, so that people might escape, he feels as though he is being ripped to shreds. A punch by a super being won’t make him bleed but it feels like it does. His super hearing which he can’t stand turning off (what if someone needs him) gives him continual migraines. He feels all of the pain one might imagine but the people of your world don’t even consider that. To them he is the superman, a commodity who exists to save them. They do not think that what he is doing is amazing because they feel it is what he should do. Just as he feels it is what he must do, after his mother’s miscarriage, his father’s heart, Batman’s misery. He couldn’t be ‘mild-mannered’ not when he could do something. No matter the cost he had to do something. 

“You are his every strength. You protect him, care for him, believe him, bolster him up. You listen to his opinions, give him your own, and support his decisions. You think as one, you give him everything he might need in all ways. You make him feel human.”

“He is human!” Lex burst out.

“No, we call him ‘your Clark Kent’ because he isn’t. That is who he wants to be, who you and yours view him as being. He isn’t human; he is Kal-El, the last son of Krypton.”

“He is Martha Kent’s son. The woman you shot.”

“The woman who brought him up doesn’t even comprehend him. Do you know that the Kents guessed his birthday on his false birth certificate? They had it correct to the day but were three years late. He was six when he came to your planet not three. It’s almost as if they, the Kents, were keyed into something put out of sync. Does that comfort you at all? You didn’t sleep with a sixteen year old, he was nineteen. Does that make you feel less ashamed then when you did it? Because you were ashamed, no matter what you told him about it not mattering. You wanted to give him everything he desired, but wondered if you weren’t somehow sick for bedding a child. 

“His computer lied to you when it told him there were twenty-six people he might have been with. It was always you, Alexander Luthor. From the moment he told you the truth it was you. While he is naught but a liability to you, you love him. When he told people they changed, Pete resented him, Chloe forgave him, Lois stopped wanting Superman. They all grew in the end; they all accepted it, went back to thinking of him as your Clark. But they saw him differently, Chloe didn’t care about his lies, Pete didn’t feel ditched when your Clark ran out on him, Lois felt closer to him. But you, you just didn’t care. It didn’t change anything about your relationship, you still argued, resented lateness, worried about him. It didn’t faze you for a moment.” 

“I already knew.”

“Yes, you had figured it out. But when you knew, even before he told you, it changed nothing. You viewed him as your miracle. You thought you hit him with the car but he brought you back from the dead. He made you think there was goodness in the world; you didn’t care about its origins just that it existed. He lied all the time, but only well enough to cover the truths not cover the lies and so you accepted it. And when you figured out that he wasn’t from Earth you felt that you understood him a little more but it didn’t change how you saw him. You still saw him as your Clark, your miracle. 

“And really, how could you not. Your beloved mother killed Julian to keep him from your father’s cruelty. Why couldn’t she have done the same for you? And then she died and left you with that sadistic, malformed creature you called Dad. And you were ashamed because as much as you loved her you hated her for leaving you alone with him. You tried to be what he wanted. You sought your father’s love right to the end. But you weren’t good enough because no matter what he did to you, you weren’t twisted like him. So he cast you aside and sent you to the hellish small town where you died in a river and were reborn on its banks.” The face seemed to sneer, “You have such a poetic way of thinking. You are a truly interesting man, Luthor, worth studying. Because you are so clever yet more blind than practically anyone we have ever studied. You are unique. Even your sexuality is interesting: you slept with a hundred and twenty-six women, eight men, and Kal-El. And you only ever loved him. And you loved him before you knew he was an alien. What was special about him?”

“Who knows? I was a whore. So if you’re studying interesting creatures, Dr. Mengele, why don’t we trade? You can take me and just bring back Clark. No tricks, no schemes. You can drop Clark off wherever you like, he’s ill it will take him too long to get to me, by then you can have picked me up. I give you my word that the Justice League won’t interfere. He’s just the last of a race, you studied them, right? Or else you wouldn’t have been able to grab him. So what’s special about him? Some sun interference? Well, that’s not interesting. I’m apparently unique.”

The face broke into laughing. And it seemed to do just that break. It looked wrong and strange, an unintended distortion. “Mengele? His cruelty was pointless. He learned nothing. That is not our aim.” It seemed to shake off the humor and said, “You would change places with him. We know that. That’s unique too. And you would do everything in your power to keep the Justice League off of it. But this isn’t a scientific study.” 

“So what are you doing? Why did you take him? Why are you broadcasting this?”

“We have taken him out of your reality, you cannot track us. This is a different… universe. We are interested in apathy, empathy, sympathy. We are interested in the emotions sentient creatures feel for one another. People do not care for you or Kal-El, not really. People use your products and technologies in their homes and businesses. Children have Superman pajamas and action figures. Objects all licensed by a small division of LLC that puts the money aside for Kal-El, money he doesn’t know he has because you think it would upset him to make money off of Superman. But no one really cares. No, we are wrong. The third world likes you. You send them millions of dollars in microloans and Kal-El is there practically once a day, as he hands out free LLC AIDs medications. They actually care for you in third world nations but they cannot see past their own problems for long. So we are sending this out so that people see you. Not just the front you send out but the actuality of Alexander Luthor. We are interested in what they will think of you then. So we will watch what happens. We will be performing minor surgery on your husband and will send that out to them as well.”

“Live alien autopsy? Vivisection. Is that part of his education?” Lex’s voice was deadly cold.

“No, his education is about the world, how it sees him, how it works, it will be complete upon his arrival back upon Earth and his reception. The surgery isn’t for his benefit; it is an education in pain for your human race. We will show the world his formative moments, your own as well, show what is telling.”

“Education in pain? I’m the poetic one? You’re telling me that you’re butchering my husband to prove that he feels pain. Prove that he isn’t an automaton to people so blind and petty that they don’t already realize it? He’s given them everything. And now you’re going to inflict yet more pain upon him to give them understanding? You want to make people see him as a person by breaking him down? I don’t think they deserve to understand him, not when he’s already tried so hard.”

“You misunderstand. We have no interest in the outcome. This is a social experiment. We don’t care if they like him, or you. We have no expectations, only care about studying the outcome. It might change something, it might not; we just want to see what will happen. The surgery will begin in an hour or so, that should give you some time to compose yourself before you stand witness. It will take approximately five hours. This conversation and the surgery will be repeated continually for a week. There will be others… the scenes of your lives we choose to show. You’ll have your husband back in three days. And the Kent woman and the others will wake in a few hours. Give them codeine for the pain when they wake up, it won’t upset their stomachs. The Martian already healed the burns, he would. Martians are the only people in your solar system who had empathy and compassion prior to any form of strife… Interesting. We are now taking you off the air.” 

As the screen blinked out of being Lex turned to take the coffee from Bruce and chugged it down. Bruce just stood frozen staring at where the screen had been. Speaking softly Lex said, “I would like some physical violence now. Can we go break those mud-rakers noses?”

“He never told me –we wouldn’t have let him- why didn’t he tell us that-”

“Bruce,” Lex interrupted. “Please be quiet. Let’s not cast aspersions or defend him when he isn’t here to argue or take it on the chin. He didn’t tell you because you would have tried to stop him. So, please. Let’s go see what scum is still lurking out there and do something stupid and rash. Then we’ll call everyone and see what they want to do, where they want to be, because in an hour something horrible is going to happen.”

Bruce gave an accenting noise. Gently grasping Lex’s arm to give him some strength as they walked they moved out of the room and down the hall. People were all staring at Lex but he didn’t notice just forged on to the entrance. The screens came back. Stopping he watched it unfold. He saw himself hit Clark with a car and the boy denied it. It was such a distant memory.

Lex was shooting Clark after shaking Rickman’s hand. Watching, Lex was transfixed. He didn’t remember it at all. He had no recollection of it but Clark had told him. He saw how incredibly cold he was. He told Clark that friendship was a fairytale and the best you could hope for were fear and respect. He watched as Clark went home and showed his parents the bruises and how he, Lex, went by the next day to see if he’d hurt Clark. Clark lied through his teeth. Seeing Clark lie was odd. Lex had forgotten how badly Clark lied and it made him smile a little to see how transparent his boy had been. But he had shot Clark that point had his mind reeling. He had shot Clark. 

And then it flashed later to him accusing Clark of lying to him about the day they met. Clark had been struck by lightning and in so much pain. He had no abilities and was scared and Lex asked him if he was okay. “Yeah,” Clark said, “never better. Maybe we can go out to the parking lot and you can hit me with your car.” He watched himself calling off his investigations and telling Roger Nixon to stay away from Clark. And telling Clark that if he tried to save the world he would end up with a messiah complex and a lot of enemies. 

It went forward to Rachel and Clark telling him the truth. It was so much easier to watch. They were good and safe happy memories and while it made him ill to think that people all over the earth were watching it was still somehow easier to digest because now it was him and Clark as a team. 

Lex started moving again through the halls with a new purpose. He threw open the door hospital door with more force than necessary. There were only ten reporters, some with camera crews, still there. The others had some modicum of human compassion and had left. 

Lex inhaled, “You just had your statement. Leave.” Then there were three reporters left, all men, one with a camera crew. “Really, I’ve warned you: go.” One man laughed and Lex was down the stairs in a shot and had punched him. He turned and hit the other two while still moving. He hadn’t broken their noses; he had decimated their faces. Rolling his neck he cracked about ten bones. 

With an off kilter smile, Bruce said, “You broke form, Alex. That hip pivot was mile wide. Your kidneys were completely unprotected. If any one of them was any good you’d be pissing blood for a week.” 

Lex and Clark were in Metropolis for an event at the museum. Lex remembered the night it was only about a month and a half after that first trip together and it was their first time back in the city. “Clark, I have a confession and you might be very angry,” Lex said handing him a soda.

“Let’s hear it,” replied Clark.

“I told you I figured out your being an alien after Rachel. But I didn’t tell you that I tried to investigate it for ages before that.”

Clark studied him and said, “I know… Roger Nixon.”

“You knew?” asked Lex.

“I’m smart, Lex. Like alien-intelligence smart. I was always aware of it.”

“And you aren’t mad?”

“It freaked me out. I was scared you would find out the truth before I could be brave enough to tell you… But, no, I’m not mad. You can’t leave things alone. You can’t cope with a mystery. It wasn’t as though you were doing it out of meanness. I lied to you, a lot. You liked me, cared for me, but you couldn’t really trust me. And you couldn’t have asked me about it. I would have lied some more. So, no I’m not mad.” He leaned forward and kissed Lex. “Hey, as you had me investigated for over a year can I not wear a tie to this? I get that there’s a dress code but you do own the wing and you sort of owe me.”

Lex laughed, “Go for it: wear jeans.”

One of the men was moaning and shouting, Lex wasn’t paying attention to him but he heard Bruce say, “Dude he warned you, suck it up… Is that camera really rolling? Turn it off before I smash it to pieces. What is wrong with you people? How is this news? How is watching a man break news? Turn it off.”

Lex noticed the woman who was hanging back. “Lois? How did you?” His words trailed off.

“Armstrong Industries is unveiling their new spectrometer tonight. I’m supposed to cover it. I didn’t want to bother you with Clark so ill, I thought I would drop by tomorrow.” Pointing to the hospital she said, “They were really polite but they wouldn’t let me in, press and all.” 

Lex and Clark were sitting in the loft, the Fortress of Solitude. Clark was laughing, drawing pictures in a notebook saying, “Look, this will be Superman, see the ‘s’?”

“Isn’t that the symbol of Lara El’s house?” asked Lex.

“On Krypton sure; here it’s just an ‘s’.”

“Why ‘Superman’?” asked Lex not for the first time. “I get that you like Nietzsche but isn’t it a bit ridiculous?” 

“Lex, the whole point of this is to be a light counterpoint to Batman. I’m wearing underwear over tights and you’re worried that I’m calling myself Superman? That’s what will make me look foolish?” 

“Lois is at The Planet now. Once you do something ‘super’ she could do a piece on you. You could show her the frozen fortress.”

“I don’t want to make Lois go there; it’s cold. She bitches about Kansas winters.”

Lex watched the scene unfold, they were young and he remembered the hot hazy day when Clark had doodled, Lex had taken calls, and neither of them left the loft, too dazed with heat to move. Groaning Lex said, “Come on, Lois inside.”

“I spoke to Chloe, Pete and Lana, and Jimmy. Mercy sent planes for them. I hope that’s okay.”

Lex nodded, “I’m glad you sorted it out.”

“Cecily’s staying home,” she added to Bruce. 

As they walked inside one of the reporters stumbled after them. An admitting nurse put out her hand to him saying, “I’m so sorry, sir. With the attack at the Kent/Luthor house we have our hands full. There’s a medi-center just a block away. I’m sure your camera crew wouldn’t mind driving you and your two friends over.” She shut the door behind herself and to Lois said, “I’m sorry we kept you out.”

Lois gave her a tight smile, “You couldn’t have been sure; I understand.” 

Pointing towards the door and the three wounded men Lex asked, “Was that legal?”

The woman shrugged, “First do no harm. It would be detrimental to you and your people to let those vultures in here. It’s not as though it will make a difference if they’re treated here or if they go to the medi-center. Besides, all of the admission staff just saw what happened so it might have taken us hours to actually offer them help.” Continuing she said, “Mr. Luthor, if there’s anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

 

To the nurse he said, “Thank you. A Charlotte Little and a Jacob Lars might come, if they do could you give them Martha’s room number?”

“Of course.”

Lex kept walking, determined to get to Martha before collapsing. People were still watching but no one approached and Lex swung into Martha’s room and finally allowed himself to sit, after pulling up chairs for Bruce and Lois. He breathed out slowly, watching the screens where he was gently stroking Clark’s hair and reading a book. Clark was fast asleep and drooling on Lex’s six hundred dollar pants. “There’s no way we can keep her unconscious for the next week is there?”

Bruce shook his head, “It’s not a good idea.” 

“Great, good, wonderful, so she’s going to wake up and see all this? That’s just fantastic.” 

“Alex-”

“Bruce, please don’t, not right now. Do you want some more coffee or something?”

“I’ll get it. Lois?”

“Decaf, thanks. Bruce, do you need to go to um…” She faltered, concerned about someone listening. 

“I have a good team. I’m sure Lucius Fox can do what’s needed here and as for the rest… they’re on it.” Suddenly realizing something he turned to Lex, “You slept with a hundred and thirty-five people?”

Clark was laughing happily on screen though Lex was carefully not watching it. He heard himself asking Clark to make popcorn when the microwave had broken and Clark laughing, saying that superheroes don’t use their power for personal gain. He heard the gasp from Clark when he had tried to make the popcorn but instead caught the bag on fire and had to throw it into the sink. It was before his ice breath had manifested.

Lex blinked into the present, “I would have said it was closer to fifty people, but I was doing a lot of drugs back then, and there were a few orgies… thank God for my immune system… or thank Krypton for exploding, whatever.”

“One hundred and thirty-five. In six years.”

“Apparently. How the hell did I graduate high school and college in six years? How did I fit it all in? Christ.” He gave a dry laugh even as dropped his head into his hands. “Christ,” he repeated but Bruce knew it wasn’t in reference to his sex life.

“Watch him,” he mouthed to Lois and went for the coffee. 

Lex remained very still, head still basically in his lap. “I would hug you,” said Lois, “but that’s really not what’s going to help you, is it?”

Clark was bitching about a sociology research paper in college and asking Lex whether or not it would be a good excuse to tell the professor he was an alien and human ways were foreign to him. Lex was snorting and saying, “Sure, you want to get committed, or possibly just fail, or piss him off, or maybe expose yourself. If, on the other hand, you don’t want to point out your illegal alien status I have a couple of really good books I can loan you.”

“Lois,” he sighed. “I will be very upset when you die. You know that.”

“Of course I do, Lex. I’m not your brother, mother, or daughter. Bruce, Mrs. Kent, and Marcy pretty much are. I’m not insulted.” She sat down on the floor next to the chair. “They’re your family, I’m Clark’s. Anyone would be upset about their sister-in-law dying but it’s not the same as a sister. I wasn’t offended. I’d rather I didn’t add a boulder to your weight, I’ll be a heavy brick.” He laughed a short bark. “They will send him home. I know this is breaking you, I wish I could do something, but they are sending him home.”

“After what sort of surgery?” he asked, finally looking up.

“I’m not saying it’s alright, that it’s not horrific, I’m telling you that you need to focus on the light. Aren’t you supposed to be goal oriented? He is coming home. Just focus on that. Once he gets here you can take it from there. And I know you’ll watch the surgery from start to finish. But when you’ve seen the whole thing once I have,” she opened her purse and spilled the contents, “wax ear plugs, sleeping pills, and a sleep mask. It’s as close to a sensory deprivation tank as I can get… besides they might broadcast it inside the sensory deprivation tank.”

“You’re a good woman, Lois. Have you told Jimmy you’re pregnant yet?”

“Clark told you?” she screeched.

“No, he said something on Thursday night when he was about to go get you for dinner. He muttered something about flying in your state. You want decaf coffee, and you don’t smell of cigarettes and expensive perfume.”

Lex’s attention caught on the screen. Clark was heading down to meet a car; Lex was talking to him via cell phone telling him to get his ass downstairs. When Clark asked why he wouldn’t just come up to the dorm Lex responded, “You’ll see.” When Clark opened the door to the limo he saw a really pretty girl and Lex said, “Have fun on your date.” 

“I haven’t told Jimmy, I don’t… after last couple of times… I just want to make sure this one sticks, y’know? We were both so excited every time, and I don’t want to do that to him again.”

“I shouted at the computer last time. If you’d told us about the problem I would have done it earlier. But you weren’t to know about the nefarious deal. I reminded it that it was supposed to give you happy lives. It doesn’t get subtlety; it’s nowhere near as human as it thinks it is. It believed children were simply progeny. Lara wouldn’t have thought that. It can’t think like we do. So I talked to it, explained things, threatened it. So you can tell Jimmy when you want. You ever going to get married?”

She laughed and faux gagged, “Hell no, we’re going to have three kids, a hybrid car, a pet bird, but not a marriage certificate.”

Clark and the girl were having fun, Lex remembered her, a daughter of a family friend. They went out to a nice dinner, discussed their majors, they danced. 

Bruce came in with coffee and Lois sent Lex a warning look. He couldn’t tell her cousin’s husband while her baby’s father didn’t know. Lex drank his coffee quietly and held Martha’s hand. People started to come in, earnestly apologizing to Lex about the situation. They kept squeezing his arm and smiling too brightly. After fifteen minutes Lex stood, excused himself, and pulled Lois out into the hall. “I know that you aren’t smoking, but you have half a pack on you, right?” She pulled them out wordlessly. He took them with a grim smile. 

Clark was walking the girl to her door and thanking her for a lovely evening. And then he was back in the limo telling the driver to take him to the penthouse.

He walked down the hall to the nurses’ station. “The law says you can’t smoke within four hundred yards of a hospital. But I also know that medical personnel have the highest amount of smokers per capita of any educated profession, so where do you smoke? Because, when you have a fifteen minute break you’re not really going to waste it walking to the legal perimeter.”

One man stood from behind the counter and said, “Let me show you.”

Lex followed him saying, “Thank you, I know that you really shouldn’t be showing me this.”

“Mr. Luthor, if you want a cigarette I think you deserve one.” He showed Lex a walled patio garden with metal garden furniture. He would have offered to sit with Lex, have a cigarette but he could see that the man was aching to be alone and so said, “I should get back.”

“Of course, thank you again,” Lex glanced at his name tag, “Max.”

Clark was in the elevator with his keys and as he opened the door to the penthouse. “Lex, that was mean!” he called kicking off his shoes. Lex came to meet him wearing reading glasses.

“You’re the one who wants to get married the moment you graduate college. I’m just pointing out that I’m really not your only choice. Stephanie is pretty, and clever, and witty. You have options, Clark.”

“Lex, please, this is the eighth time you’ve done this to me. And they’re all smart, motivated, young, attractive people. Basically, they’re all pale shadows of you. So would you stop? I get it. I see what you’re trying to say. I do: I’m young and bright and you’re an ancient, used up, cold, mad, used-to-be-druggy. I get it. The message is received, torn up, and put down the disposal unit. Move on... are you hungry? I’m starving.” Clark went past him to make pasta. “The next time you tell me to come down to the car because you can’t come up I’m going to fly directly over here. I mean, there’s no point. We go out, we talk, we have a nice time, I drop them off, and come back here. Now, if you’re trying to get out of going on a date before you get laid we can do that. We’ll cut out the preamble and just get to the part of the night where I make pasta, you make calls, and we make love until dawn. I’m really fine with that.”

“I like dates with you,” said Lex softly.

“Then stop sending strangers on our dates.” 

Max the nurse was walking back inside when he heard Bruce Wayne saying, “It’s very kind of you all to come and show Lex your support, but you need to stop touching him. He doesn’t do very well with touch. And he’s stressed to his limits. While I know you’re trying to be kind it would be much kinder of you not to offer him any sort of physical comfort.” 

A man walked in with a dog at his heals. “Sir, you can’t-” Max started. 

“I wasn’t sure what I should do with him. We were at the groomers. Clark vomited on him this morning. They were trying to make him not reek and his fur was bright green. And then, well, there was that broadcast. Ignatius isn’t supposed to stay at home alone. So I just came. I’m Jacob.”

Max glanced towards Cheryl who said, “We’ll write him off as a therapy dog.”

“Let me show you where Mr. Luthor is,” said Max. He walked straight back the way he’d come. 

Jonathan Kent was so very thin, scared of another heart attack. He handed Lex a small box when they were alone. Inside was a pocket watch. “I know you aren’t getting married yet. And I know I gave you one when you married that harpy. But if I ever need to give you another one I will kill you, bad heart or no.”

Laughing softly Lex said. “You give out pocket watches for weddings, Jon. If I needed another, was marrying someone other than Clark, wouldn’t you kill me first?”

“You were family long before you and Clark were together. As family you would merit a watch but then I would have to kill you for hurting my son.” Lex laughed again and moved to hand back the box Jonathan stopped him. “You’re not getting married for another two years but I’m not going to be there so you just keep the watch.”

“What if Clark’s the one who needs another wedding day watch?” asked Lex.

“Well then, he’ll get his watch and then I’ll have to kill him for hurting my son,” he laughed, looked around his hospital room and said, “or haunt him.”

“Jonathan-” Lex started.

“You aren’t a liar, son, not when it matters. Don’t start with a dying man.” 

Lex took Jonathan’s hand gently and said, “Will you give Clark his watch?” 

“No, I’ll leave it Martha, for the big day. Lex? You will take care of them for me? I know you always have, but they’re going to need you to be strong for them.”

Lex shook his head, “You’re wrong. I need to be strong with them. They are strong enough. This is natural if horrific, this something we all have to cope with and go through but I’ll always be with them.” 

“How is he?” as Jacob as they walked.

“I think he’s about to explode. He’s having a cigarette.”

“Oh God,” muttered Jacob. They turned the corner to see Lex smoking his second cigarette. “Hey, Lex.”

Lex didn’t turn, “Hey, Jacob. I’m so glad you weren’t there.” Ignatius barked and Lex finally turned, “Hello, Ignatius.” The huge dog put his paws on Lex’s lap and rested his jaw on top of Lex’s head. “You should have known my father-in-law, Jacob, you would have liked him.” He buried his nose in the dog’s fur. “Good dog. Who doesn’t smell of vomit anymore? That’s right: you don’t smell of vomit.” He breathed in slightly and turned his head to inhale a drag from his cigarette. 

“Mrs. Little is still on Big Pine. She wasn’t sure if you would want her here.” Jacob nodded to Max who left quietly.

Ignatius put his paws back on the ground and put his head in Lex’s lap. Lex pulled out his cell phone. “Mrs. Little, yeah… no, stay with Dave. You’re supposed to be having a few days off with your son… No, honestly. Lois and Bruce are here, Chloe, Pete, and Jimmy are coming. It’s just anxiety and sitting about… There’s nothing to do here. It’s just waiting… There’s no point in being uncomfortable. Don’t worry. No, there’s nothing to do.” He took a drag, “No, I’m not smoking… No… Mrs. Little, while I appreciate your concern I am a grown man.”

On the screen he was crying and then Clark was walking into the room, Lex was covertly drying his eyes as he moved to tie Clark’s tie. “Do you have the eulogy?” he asked softly and Clark nodded. The boy let out a sob and buried his face in Lex’s neck.

“I can’t do this,” said Clark, “I can’t bury my dad. I can’t talk about his life. He’s fifty-seven, Lex. I know he has a bad heart but this has to be some sick joke. I can’t do this.”

“You can,” said Lex running his fingers through Clark’s hair. “You can stand and tell them about your father.”

He sighed, exhaled and continued raggedly into the phone, “You can’t drive when they’re broadcasting. Right, goodbye.” Turning to Jacob he said, “You should go see your mom.”

“When’s Mrs. Little getting back?”

“Four hours after the surgery. She’s going to go to the house and make sure everything’s okay there. Damn it.” He hit the table. The dog started back.

Jacob leaned down in front of him in his best non-imposing stance, which was hard as he stood at six seven. “Lex, I’m going to ask you to do something that either no one has thought of, or was stupid enough, or brave enough to ask. Please give me your gun and allow me to take it home.” Lex looked at him like a scared animal and Jacob continued, “The state you’re in, it’s amazing no one has gotten shot yet. I know you have all the papers and permits to carry a concealed weapon. But, truthfully, I don’t think you’re in a place where you should have a gun. This is a hospital.”

Lex reached into his jacket. “But then someone could attack.”

“Everyone knows you ‘pack heat’. They won’t know that you’ve taken a different route today. No one will attack you. Besides, I heard on the radio coming over here that some reporter scum lost teeth earlier at your fist. So I think you’re covered.”

Mournfully handing the cigarette over, he said, “Don’t smoke that: it’s mine.” He pulled the gun out from his shoulder holster and released the cartridge and put the weapon on the table in two pieces. Jacob handed back the cigarette. “Very good, Sir. The nursing staff is fine with Ignatius so I’ll drop this off and come back. I’m also going to order food.” He put up a hand to stop Lex from arguing. “It won’t be anything highly scented, I know the very idea of food makes you sick right now but an army marches on its stomach and you have a lot of people with you.”

“Right, good, thank you.”

“It’s no problem at all.” Jacob exited silently. Lex sat smoking for another twenty minutes. Finally he walked back in with Ignatius at his side. 

Bruce stood up as he saw him and Lex said, “It’s almost time, isn’t it?” 

Bruce wrinkled his nose, “Are you on fire?”

“Febreeze?” Lex requested of Lois who tossed a tiny bottle over to him. Lex sprayed himself liberally and threw it back. He sat down heavily next to Martha’s bed. Ignatius pulled himself up onto Lex’s lap, with half of his body on the bed. His two hundred and thirty pound body somehow made Lex feel lighter.

On screen Clark changed quickly from Superman to Clark Kent reporter, he got shouted at for a missed deadline. He had trouble getting home, keeps flickering between too fast and normal, stumbled a few times. In the kitchen he cooked pancakes, he changed into his WTR pants and turned on the cartoon network. Then his cell phone beeped and he sighed before super speeding into his suit, stubbing his toe, and flying out the window. Lex came home, ate the now cold pancakes, and paced in front of the TV, now set to news, he watched the news when Clark flew into a well and pulled out a little girl. He tripped slightly as he carried her out and Lex muttered, “I fucking hate sunspots. Why he even doing this? He knows everything’s on the fritz but god forbid he gets someone else to cover it. I hate the goddamn cell phone. Because when it goes off screw everything else, a fuck the Justice League because it’s solely his responsibility.” He sighed and talked at the TV, “Just come home, you’ve done your bit, now come home.”

The image blinked out and went black for a moment. Lex sat up slightly straighter. “I do not want to watch this,” said Lex softly. 

“Sleeping pills, ear plugs, and a face mask?” offered Lois.

“No, I need to watch, we need to know what they did so we can undo it.” So he sat silently watching as the weird aliens led Clark into the room. 

Clark was green, not ill looking, literally green. He was listless, his sweat and extremities were green, and he was whimpering softly. The creatures pushed him onto a slab of kryptonite and Clark moaned flinching back. He tried to get away while still sitting on it. They forced him to put his hands palm down on the surface. “Please let me go home, please. I just wanna go home. I won’t be Superman if you don’t want me to. You don’t need to do this; you don’t need to hurt me. I’ll do what you want. Please.”

“Kal-El, we aren’t trying to stop you from being Superman. You will still have your abilities. It will take a few weeks to adjust. We are simply externalizing the pain. People need to see what you go through and you will not be able to cover it after this.”

“But it already hurts.”

“Have you ever enjoyed being this way? Saving the world?” Clark just sat there, not answering. “Kal-El,” the tone was inhuman but still recognizable as a reprimand. 

“No. Smallville just had so much trouble and it was always hurting the people I cared about. So I had to do it. It didn’t matter if it hurt. It needed to be done. And then…”

“And then your actions caused Martha Kent to miscarriage, and you did all those awful things while drugged to ignore your actions.”

“People sometimes need help that can’t be given in normal ways. And it’s my responsibility.”

“So answer the question. Do you enjoy what you do?”

“I like running fast, I love flying. I hate the attention, I hate the recognition, I hate pain of it. But, I mean, sometimes people need help. And I like it when it doesn’t hurt or if no one really notices. On the whole, I don’t like being Superman.”

“So, it wouldn’t be so awful.”

“I need to be able to do it.”

“We know, we understand. They need to see.” One of the creatures pushed Clark down. He fought with the strength of a child. “This is tempered. It won’t hurt as such; it will just make it so you can’t hide the pain you already feel.”

They strapped him down tight and Clark was moaning, trying to get away from the meteorite. And then they pulled out green tinted instruments. A humming noise started and they began cutting lines into Clark. Clark screamed and screamed. It didn’t sound like it was television, Clark was in the room, the scream was in the room.

Bruce put his hand on Lex’s shoulder and Lex slapped it away hard. He didn’t want anyone touching him, not even Bruce. All he wanted was for Clark to be away from these aliens. He wouldn’t even need Clark by him. He didn’t need to ever see or touch Clark ever again if he could just get him away. The cutting went on forever. Lex was vaguely aware of Martha waking up, hearing her voice and Bruce’s explanations, but he was nowhere near them. He just watched the screen. The cuts were precise and slow. The people were so careful and seemed completely unaware of Clark’s screams. 

After several hours they pulled out new instruments. Lex recognized them as bone saws. He didn’t blink as they carved into Clark’s bones, splitting them down to the marrow. A boiling pot of liquid kryptonite was wheeled into the room. As bad as the screaming before it became worse. It turned into one not of pain and horror but grief and fear. From the scream Lex could tell that Clark believed that he was going to die. They splinted the carved bones open and poured the liquid in. Clark screamed and screamed. 

Ignatius’ howls joined the noise but Lex didn’t hush him: he couldn’t find his voice to do so. Instead, he pulled the dog more firmly into his lap. Holding the nearly feral creature to his chest his fingers tightened in Ignatius’ fur. Lex felt like screaming too, and so it was as though the dog was howling for them both. 

One of the creatures said, “Stop it, Kal-El. Stop being foolish, it’s tempered. It won’t kill you. In a few weeks it will not hurt. Be calm.”

But Clark couldn’t stop screaming. The liquid started to solidify and they slid solid bolts into the mixture and replaced the bones. They ran some sort of a scanner over the bones which re-solidified. They replaced the flesh and ran the scanner over the flesh. The bolts stood proud of Clark’s skin. 

“It will need several hours to solidify. We are leaving you now.” They exited the room, leaving Clark strapped down. And Clark kept screaming for hours. As time went by it tapered off and he was just moaning, dry sobbing. After hours of whimpers he said, in a rough, small voice, “Please let me go home. Please, I need Lex.” He seemed to drift, into the pain, away from the situation. He just kept repeating Lex’s name. 

Lex just sat, watching the new images. Clark was decorating his dorm room at top speed. Pete came in and grimaced, “Really, Clark? You’re not even going to be here most of the time. Why do I have to look at Lifehouse and Josh Kelly posters?”

Smiling widely Clark said, “Lex wants me to actually live here; he says it’s important to my development as a person to catch foot fungus off of communal showers.”

Pete snorted, “Two weeks –max- and you’ll be in one another’s back pockets.”

“And when that happens you can take down my posters and use the pent house’s shower.” 

Laughing Pete said, “You and him, you’re for keeps?”

Clark groaned, “Can we skip the ‘Lex Luthor is his father’s son’ speech. You don’t like him; I know.”

“He’s growing on me… a bit like foot fungus. But just… gimme time, Clark. He’s important to you so I guess I need to get over it and accept that he has to be important to me too.” He then tugged at a corner of a blue thing in one of Clark’s boxes and pulled out the Superman costume. “Seriously?” he laughed. “I can’t wait to see Lana’s face when she sees you in this get up. The girls will make fun of you.”

“Bite me,” Clark laughed. 

“Lex,” Martha called softly. He shook his head leaving the dorm and the young boys he saw there. She didn’t touch him. 

“I’m sorry, Martha.” 

“Why don’t you let J’onn put you out?”

Lex looked around and realized that Jimmy, Chloe, and Pete had arrived. Lana wasn’t there yet and Lex vaguely wondered why. “Martha,” he repeated. 

“The hospital wants to keep me here longer. This is going to be played repeatedly. You need sleep; you need to be turned off. Let J’onn put you out.”

Lex swallowed. “Okay,” he nodded but didn’t move. J’onn walked up to him, shooed Ignatius off of Lex’s lap, and touched the man’s forehead. Lex instantly slumped forward. The dog growled at J’onn as the Martian picked Lex up and placed him on the other bed in the room. He nodded to Ignatius who leapt onto the bed and curled around his master. J’onn reached out to stroke the dog who lifted his head and growled. J’onn nodded and stepped away.

The screen reset itself to the first conversation. Martha was the only one who hadn’t seen Lex’s audience with the creatures. She watched in silence. Chloe moved to her bed and took her hand. “My poor boys,” she said as she pulled Chloe more firmly onto the bed. On the large screen, Lex fell to pieces. Martha could tell that he was doing his best not to let it show but she could see his seams tearing. She looked over to Lex’s bed. Ignatius was growling low in his chest. 

Bruce stood and said, “If he will permit it would you allow me to take Ignatius for a walk?”

Neither the man nor the dog was very good at staying still. Bruce could be a statue for hours but only while wearing a cowl, and though Ignatius had been at his master’s side since the afternoon he usually couldn’t stay put for more than twenty minutes. Martha gave him a weak smile, “If he’ll let you.” 

Bruce picked up a leash that Jacob had dropped in the corner. The dog growled as Bruce approached. “Nat,” Bruce said harshly. The dog lowered his head, licked Lex up the jaw, and jumped off the bed to stand obediently at Bruce’s side. “Good dog.” As they walked out Bruce and Ignatius both shook their tightened joints loose. 

Nodding to the nursing staff Bruce started to pick up speed. By the time they got to the doors the pair was flat out running. Through the streets of Key West they ran as though chased. And after a good hour they both slowed. Bruce bought two bottles of water off a street vender and sat down in a park. One bottle was poured out in a puddle for the dog. Bruce found an area that had signs showing a dog off a lead. He let Ignatius go but the screens were everywhere, back to Clark burning popcorn. Trailing the dog Bruce picked up his waste to throw it away and it seemed pretty appropriate, Clark was tortured, he couldn’t help Lex, Batman was useless in the situation; all he could do was pick up shit. They walked back to the hospital more slowly and as they went Bruce talked.

“Nat, I know you aren’t happy. I know you don’t want people near Lex. But even with those givens, you need to be polite to J’onn. I know you aren’t racist but he’s a little sensitive, and none of those people back there wanted his help ‘til they saw what he’d done for Martha, so the scab has been picked. When we get back in there you need to be polite, he’s under as much strain as the rest of us.” 

The alien screen nearest him flickered and Bruce stopped, waiting for a new horror. Instead one of the aliens appeared and said, “John Stewart, we will not be upset if you disable the broadcast where you are. You do not have to watch this, your education is complete. Mrs. Kent has seen what was necessary for her.” Bruce knew that to mean all the comments about the miscarriage. The loop was about to hit Clark being tortured. “The Justice League and the chosen family of Kal-El may disable our program. If you attempt to turn it off for anyone else there will be consequences… Yes, Lana Ross and the Wayne household too… Kal-El will not need to watch it, no.” Bruce picked up his speed and jogged back to the hospital. 

By the time he got back to the hospital Clark was screaming on the screens. Inside he raced towards Martha’s room. The door shut behind him and there was blessed silence. “Thank God.” 

“You’re welcome,” said John Stewart putting down a small handheld disrupter charge. It was covered in dials and had obviously been mocked up quickly. 

Martha gave him a weary smile, “Is it raining?”

“No, we were running.” Lex was still asleep but he kept moving. Lex never moved when asleep. It was always as though his subconscious thought he would be safer if he was still. “How are you doing?” 

She gave him another, weaker smile. “We’re okay.”

Bruce let Ignatius off the leash. And the dog went to J’onn and nudged against his legs. J’onn reached down to stroke his head so Ignatius obliged by licking the hand vigorously. Once he was finished, Ignatius climbed back on top of Lex. Martha was still obviously in pain, and quiet medicated; she drifted off not long after John had disabled the screen. John and J’onn left to check in with Alfred, the planes that were filled with Clark’s family, and return to the Tower to see if there was anything to be done while the other went into an empty room down the hall where Bruce turned off the screen using the machine John had left.

Chloe settled against Bruce, Jimmy against Lois, Pete settled into himself. “What are we going to do?” asked Lois.

Turning to Bruce, Chloe asked, “Did you know he felt pain?” Bruce just shook his head, pulling his wife closer to him.

“Lex did,” muttered Pete. 

Bruce leveled him with a warning look. “Don’t you dare, Pete. If Lana had a secret like this would you have told anyone? Lex is in the other room practically in a coma because he can’t deal with this. He’s being torn apart. It wasn’t his secret to tell. The onus of truth was on Clark.”

“Lana and the boys. How are they?” asked Chloe.

“They’re good,” said Pete. He wasn’t looking at Bruce. “They’re in Washington; we figured it would be hard enough without a seven and five year-old underfoot. Same with Cecily?” She nodded.

They sat in silence, drinking coffee. There was a veritable feast laid out in the waiting room but while families of the wounded guards had picked at it, none of Clark’s family could face the idea of food. Eight hours later Lex walked into the room carrying cake. He sat down, ate methodically, and finally once his plate was clean he said, “I love this quite. When did it start?”

“About two hour after J’onn knocked you out,” replied Lois.

“Who did it?” 

“John Stewart.”

“Thank Christ for that.”

“How can you eat?” asked Pete.

Lex shrugged, not angry, just tired. “I’ve been worrying about Clark every minute for every day for the last twenty-two years. And considering he’s thirty-eight… forty-one… thirty-eight that’s a long time. Yet I can’t even process this. I never thought our important memories would be on display for everyone. And even with the copious amount of worrying I have done I never thought that our lives would be this exposed. Sure they’ve seen Clark hurt seen all of us waiting in terror but not like this. I never really considered nightmare like aliens taking him out of our universe and performing horrific surgery on him while he was awake. So I’m going to eat cake, at least one more slice. Because if I don’t eat cake, don’t distract myself somehow, I’m going to kill someone. Not with the gun that Jacob sensibly took off me… No, I’m going to punch someone in the face until they no longer have a face. Then I’ll go wild in the NICU by drop kicking babies. So after another slice of cake, and a few cigarettes, I’m going to take the sleeping pills Lois so kindly offered me earlier, and knock myself out again. Because even though Martha will be awake soon and I should be at her beckoned call, be the good son-in-law I endeavor to be, I am about to rip this place apart.” 

He stood and started to exit and Bruce held out John Stewart’s device. “Turn this dial while pressing the green button.” Lex nodded and left. To Pete Bruce said, “You need to stop talking. I know you don’t mean to but you just keep exacerbating the problem.” Pete nodded. 

When Martha woke up they were all still sitting about. She came in with an IV drip on a pole, a slight limp, and a large sandwich and salad. Looking around she asked, “Have any of you eaten?” Bruce just shook his head. “You should. Even if you feel ill at the thought, food will make you feel better… and it’s something to do. It will take your mind off of everything.” She ate slowly and asked, “Is Lex still out from J’onn or did he knock himself out?”

Bruce grimaced, “Sleeping pills.”

“Good for him.” Martha saw the slight arch of Chloe’s eyebrow and said, “The only thing worse than this situation is having this situation and watching Lex systematically shut down while trying to be useful. Has he killed anyone yet?”

“No,” said Bruce slowly, “but he did smash in a few photographers’ faces. Gushing blood and lost teeth, but he hasn’t actually killed anyone.”

Martha nodded, continued to eat. And when she was done she asked, “When are we allowed to go home?” 

“When J’onn says it’s okay,” said Lois. 

Martha looked at her, studied her face, took in her newly poor complexion, and smiled suddenly, but Lois shook her head. Still smiling Martha said, “Is he here?”

“No, but he can be here in moments,” said Bruce. His eyes unfocused and J’onn materialized. 

“Are you ready to go?” He asked, he was holding one of his scanners and Martha nodded, struggled to stand, J’onn went to her, “Don’t stand. You’re abdomen must still be sore.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. 

J’onn silently ran the scan and said. “I’ll need them to up your codeine, give you a supply of oral meds, but then we can send you home. I’m just going to go talk to your doctor.” He came back a few moments later with a small bottle of pills, “Three days’ supply, Ms. Graves is sending cars for the families. Flash will drive their cars back from the house. We may go. Bruce will you carry Lex? I will assist Mrs. Kent.” J’onn picked up Martha saying, “You shouldn’t be walking for a couple of days.”

They went back to the house. All signs of the break-in and violence were gone. After disabling the screens they all went to bed, tried to sleep. Over the next few days the air was tense. They all did abundant amounts of work to keep their minds off it, they ate, worked out, found ways to avoid the subject. Lex didn’t talk much, but he didn’t glom, he was just quiet and withdrawn. Lana dropped the boys off with her aunt and flew down the day before Clark was meant to get back. It felt like old, unhappy times, but familiar. 

At four in the morning, on what they had been told would be their last day of waiting, Martha woke to hear clanging noises. She recognized the noise as an egg beater against a metal bowl. Pulling on a robe she left her bed and went down to the kitchen. She saw Lex standing in the mostly dark room beating a mixture in a bowl.

At first she thought he was sleep walking and said softly, “Lex?”

He turned alert and obviously conscious. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I woke up and heard you. Lex, you were cooking at seven o’clock. What are you doing? Have you slept?”

He held out the bowl, “I’m making custard, mixing before I put on the heat.”

“You don’t like custard.”

“Martha, I am about to sound insane. Please don’t condescend and act like what I say is normal. Clark likes custard. And what if, in a few hours time, he walks through that door perfectly fine and hungry? What if he’s almost okay and his being hungry is more important than removing the kryptonite? I know that’s wishful thinking and stupid. But the AI is already calculating how to reverse the surgery so I’m going to bake jalapeño fig bread and whip some cream.”

She nodded and went to the sink to wash her hands. “Once we’re done with those we’ll make a berry salad. Then if we’re still alone down here we can make breakfast for everyone.” 

Together they cooked in silence for hours. Lex pulled a tray of corn muffins out of the oven with a mitt and finally she said, “Lex, I don’t want to do this to you-”

He looked at the protective mitten and said, “No, Martha, pulling a hot tray out of the oven doesn’t hurt him. Nothing he does really hurts him, a lot of things that used to hurt, don’t. He doesn’t even notice gun shots anymore. He loves flying, and running. It’s things like getting beaten up by other super heroes that hurt. That sort of brings him back to our level. Things that would rip another to pieces ache really badly. If a building falls on him he hurts for a while, a few days, like if you or I had a bad concussion. The hearing its self doesn’t hurt: it’s what he hears. He has all the human nerves, he feels it if he stubs his toe but that sort of thing doesn’t hurt. The kryptonite seems to get worse as he gets stronger but he’s also more capable of coping with the pain. You haven’t failed him. It’s a mother’s job to worry about her son. And it’s her son’s job to try and avoid his mother’s worries.”

She wrapped her arms around him and he turned into the hug and dropped his head onto her shoulder. “It’s not your fault he became Superman. He knows you don’t blame or hate him for the miscarriage. But that doesn’t stop him from being responsible, he feels he’s responsible. He tried to destroy the ship and the feedback wave killed his unborn sibling, that’s just fact. He doesn’t care that it was an accident. Moreover, the things that happened afterwards were his fault, it doesn’t matter that he was doped on red K, he decided to wear that ring.

“While your miscarriage could arguably not be his fault the things that happened afterwards were. While we have forgiven and moved past that time he has not. And if it hadn’t been for that something else would have happened. We all feel guilt and remorse over past actions but he feels it more. So please, put it out of your mind that you are in anyway responsible for this mess… I once told him I thought he would be a superhero some day, that I hoped he wouldn’t but seemed inevitable. I wish I could take those words back. But the past is gone. So right now, we cook.”

By the time the others were waking up there was a three course breakfast on the table. It was a more impressive spread than the one which had been laid out at LLC only days before. People came down one by one, grabbing coffee, and then sitting at the table to work through the food. 

After a little while Lex said, “We need more coffee. I’m going out.” He was in the silk sweat pants he’d worn the night before while trying to sleep and a t-shirt that had some cooking stains. Upstairs he grabbed a pair of ear plugs and pulled on running shoes. In the kitchen Ignatius tried to follow him out but Lex said, “Stay, stay, he’s all over to streets. You shouldn’t have to see Clark in pain again, stay.”

He opened the backdoor and started running, ignoring the screens, flat out. By the time he got to the store he was dripping in sweat. Inside he quickly scanned the shelves and found the coffee Clark liked, fair trade, shade grown, organic. It wasn’t very good coffee. Lex had suggested buying good coffee but sending money directly to the farmers of Clark’s choice. But Clark had raised an eyebrow and said, “Lex to make the system work you have to actually work within the system. Buy whatever coffee you like; I’m going to keep drinking this weak crap.” 

Lex went to the pharmacist and gave her a tight smile as he took out the ear plugs. Clark was putting up posters in his dorm. “Hello, Linda. I put out my back a few years ago and had a script for Percocet. It still has two refills on it. It’s on your records. I know that the refill dates have long since expired. But is there any way, any loop hole, which can get it refilled?”

She thought and then said, “No, but I can call your doctor and he can tell me to fill one for Clark.”

“Thank you.” She went to phone to doctor and Lex replaced the ear plugs. There were even screens in the store and Lex kept his eyes on the counter. 

When she came back she handed him a bottle of sixty and said that with Clark’s digestion rate he could take one every two hours. Lex thanked her, paid, and left. 

As he ran he kept his eyes down. He could feel other’s gaze upon him and he didn’t want to meet their eyes. It was true: he didn’t care what others thought of Lex Luthor. But he did care about what people thought of him, of Lex, that mattered. The people he let close to him knew him beyond his cold exterior and respected him for who he was. But now the whole world, literally, the whole damn world had seen him fraying at the seams. Crying for his dead father-in-law-to-be. They had watched him as those alien bastards had talked of his mother and Julian, of the surgery, of his fears. He did not want to know what they now thought of him. But he felt the change in the air, felt the sudden tenseness of the people on the street. 

Looking up he saw something small and distant falling. It was so high in the sky, but it was falling slowly, too slowly to actually be natural. With sudden clarity Lex knew exactly what it was, estimated where it would land, and took off faster. As he reached the spot he looked up, braced himself and caught Clark as he fell. Clark was moving at about fifteen miles an hour. Clark’s head was going to hit the ground hard. It didn’t seem all that fast but Lex was pushed into the pavement as he caught him. But then Clark was there, in his arms, kissing him hard with tongue and groping. And Lex didn’t care that people were watching, that those damned screens were broadcasting their reunion to the world. 

As Clark broke away he pulled Lex close and said, “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“Of course you would; you’re a bad penny,” replied Lex. He was stroking Clark’s hair gently and he said softly, “You smell awful, and you’re very, very green, a pale hunter green.” 

“Hey, at least I’m not vomiting anymore.”

“True. How do you feel?”

“Kinda worse than I have ever felt in my life, like ever. Everything hurts, and it’s weighing me down, and all of my powers are on the fritz. They work, which is weird, but they keep coming on and shorting out, and it hurts. It feels like fire working its way out with sudden bursts of nerve rendering pain. This is worse than even the scarecrow incident. Which was possibly the worse thing ever because I was conscious for hours and hours.” 

Lex heard a noise and turned to see that the screens had spilt, on one side they were now showing Whitney and the football team beating Clark up, putting Lana’s necklace around his neck, and tying him to the post. Clark felt Lex tense and he said, “He didn’t mean it, Lex. It was freshman hazing. They didn’t know it could kill me.”

“I know, baby. Let’s get you home. You were on that post for five hours; I don’t think you need to watch this. You can’t walk, can you?” 

“I don’t think so. I could stand, does that help?”

“Yeah, I can carry you home.”

Clark started to stand but Lex couldn’t. As he tried to move upwards he felt a slick slipping within his legs and was back on the ground. Looking down at his legs Lex finally realized what the rest of the planet had already noticed. His legs were shattered to hell; shards of bone were poking out through his skin in different directions. Clark said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have caught me.” 

“You were going to smash your head open and break your neck. Besides, I can’t feel it, too much adrenaline.”

Clark looked at him for a long pause, shook his head and said, “This is going to sound ridiculous but I’m starving.”

“Well, also ridiculously, I was up all night cooking.”

“Is Mom okay? Because those weird faced creeps shot her, and some others, I didn’t really see who.”

“They’re all okay. Martha cooked too.”

“Is there lots of food? They said it was going to take a couple of weeks to feel okay, and I just want to stay on the couch.”

“You aren’t waiting this out.”

Panic swept over Clark’s face, “You think I should start right back?”

“No!” Lex was horrified he stroked his husband’s forehead. “What the hell did they do to you? No, we’re going to take care of this.”

“Oh… okay.”

Lex kept stroking Clark’s hair, even though he knew it couldn’t actually stop Clark from being in pain. “There’s tons of food, so we’re going home, you’re eating, and we’re going to the Fortress, it’s going to undo this as painlessly as possible. We just need to get you home and then we’re off. We need the cavalry.” He pulled out his cell and hit the third speed dial. “Yeah. Hi… Yeah, okay… they were being dicks but they didn’t mean to kill him… They were in high school, J’onn… Whitney was actually quite a nice boy in the end… yeah, thanks.” He hung up and said, “Lantern’s coming here, Wonder Woman’s in the Javelin on the way to the house. Lantern will be here in a few minutes.” 

“I don’t care if it hurts, if we can get it out, that’s good.”

“It won’t hurt that badly, I promise, it’ll be alright.”

“You’re legs are worrying.”

“They’re starting to itch.” Lex looked at his legs; they were shattered well above his knees. Clark slumped down and slouched into himself. 

Quite a crowd had surrounded them and a woman walked out. “Excuse me, I’m an orthopedic surgeon.”

Clark instantly tensed. That coupled with the noises of Clark tied to a post being slowly poisoned made Lex edgy. Lex was fast on the draw and had his gun almost instantly trained on her. “Miss, that may be true and you might be trying to help. But, if you don’t get back into the crowd, I will shoot to maim. I’m genuinely sorry about pointing this gun at you. I know how frightening it is to be drawn upon. You aren’t to come near him. Do you understand?” She moved back with her hands out in front of her. “Thank you. I’m sorry if you’re trying to help. You need to keep back. All of you.” He kept his gun trained on the crowd and said, “Clark, please calm down.”

“I think that should go for you too,” said John Stewart as he floated to the ground. Lex had the gun trained on him. “Is there a way to help you without getting shot?” asked John, very calmly.

Lex thought and said finally, “Can you do something about my legs?” 

John looked at them and said, “I could make them disappear, give you another pair for a while.”

“That’ll work,” Lex nodded and then braced himself for pain. Pain never came; instead he felt a tingling and his legs were suddenly replaced with clear green ones. “Thank you.” He replaced his gun in the holster and stood quickly. He looked at the shopping in his hand and then held it out to John, “Could you maybe carry this?” 

John nodded and took it off him. He wasn’t talking, was trying to be unobtrusive but stayed close incase his friends needed help. Lex picked Clark up easily. He carried his boy through the streets without taking his eyes off Clark. He realized he was pressing into one of the bolts. “Am I hurting you?”

“Not really. It’s like a paper cut on top of a third degree burn, don’t worry about it.”

Lex moved his hand, “I will worry about it. It’s my job to worry when you won’t.”

“They made me watch your interview. Sometimes you should stop worrying. If you had hair it would be grey. And I’m sorry about the lack of a cure for cancer. I can’t believe you make all the Superman crap.”

“It’s your retirement money. They sell for five dollars, they cost three dollars to produce, a dollar goes to children homes, and a dollar goes to you.” He kissed Clark’s forehead and laughed, “You really do reek.” 

Clark curled closer to Lex and said, “There’s a lot to talk about. You lied to me.” 

“Yes,” agreed Lex. “Right now I’m just glad you’re here. Let’s do it once we’re off live TV. We’ll talk about it. Alright?” The house came into view and Lex said, “Home now.” 

Martha was out the door like a shot and kissing Clark’s head and crying on him. Lex stood there, smiling at them both as he held Clark and Clark held Martha saying, “Hi, Mom. Are you okay?”

She dragged them both inside and sighed as she looked at the screens. “They came back when you fell. We can’t turn them off.” 

They went directly into the kitchen where Lex put Clark down on a stool. He pulled out a plate and said, “What do you want?”

Clark looked around and said, “Did you cook everything I like?”

At first he considered lying but said, “Yes, we did.” He piled a plate high with food and said, “Wonder Woman will be here soon.” He took the bag off of John with a nod and pulled out the bottle of pills, “One every two hours, should make it a bit more bearable until we fix this.” To John he said, “What would you like? We have everything.” 

The room was suddenly filled with people, hugging Clark, Chloe and Pete were both crying, Ignatius was licking him. And Clark was relaxing into a hug from Bruce. Lana was hanging back watching the screens, watching what Whitney had done to him. “Lana,” Clark said softly.

“He was a good man in the end right?”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Clark. Lana looked shocked but then trained her face, after all, Clark was being tortured on the screen. He continued, “He was a good and kind boy but he never had the opportunity to be a good man. He was dead before his nineteenth birthday because of an unjust war. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, just humiliate me into not pining over his girlfriend.” He reached for her and she moved into his arms. “He wasn’t cruel: he was a teenager.” He gently stroked her hair, his hands hurt as he flexed them and it was written all over his face but he did it. 

“I thought Superman didn’t have opinions on human wars.” Bruce meant it as a joke but he saw Clark blanch farther.

“Am I going to get deported?”

Bruce raised his eyebrow, “Is that a joke?”

“I mean, I shouldn’t have said that, right? The government still says we won. And I’m an illegal alien. A very alien illegal alien. And I vote all the time. The only really notable thing I ever wrote on the staff of The Planet was about a politician. I did it because I thought it was important because I thought people should know. Did I have that right? And when the government figures it out, thinks of this, are they going to send me away?”

“You realize that if they didn’t think of it before, you just told them, right?” asked Bruce.

Pete rolled his eyes at Bruce and then leaned down to be at eye line with Clark. “Clark, listen to me now. I’m not speaking as your friend I’m Senator Ross. They’re not going to deport you. Forget ideals or platitudes. Nineteen years ago, when you started doing your thing the president announced that the superhero was real and he spoke with a Midwestern accent. At that point Batman was running around being a vigilantly. Flash looked like a punk. They branded GL as a thug with a ring. And the very first thing you did was super speed a family out of a crashed car before it blew up. You didn’t stop a crime or beat someone up you just saved lives after a faultless accident. The first picture the public saw of you in the silly costume you were crouching while holding and protecting a three month old baby from the fire bomb that was framing you heroically. That was the first time the press had to show a superhero in a good light. The world now looks to you. 

“If America throws you out the country it is going to look like they really don’t care about good people. Forget whether or not the government likes you, pragmatically they cannot say they don’t want Superman. So you’re from another planet, you have a fake American birth certificate and forged adoption papers, and you maybe shouldn’t be voting? Ok. But. You run around in Levi’s and Hanes t-shirts, you drive a Chevy that you run on biodiesel, and announce after averting awful situations all over the world that you’re going home to America while flashing your prefect white corn-fed toothy smile. You’re all organic everything, fair-trade, no sweatshop wearing, your house is run on solar-water-air power. Clark, you’re one of very few who does that. And yeah, you’re rich enough to do that while most people can’t but that doesn’t negate the fact that you do it. 

“They aren’t going to kick out the guy who makes America look good. And maybe they don’t like the fact that you vote but they’re never going to question it. Because, if they kicked you out, the government, myself included, would look like the most hypocritical dirt bags on Earth.” 

“You’re a very good orator, Pete,” said Clark.

“I won two senatorial elections. Plus, it helped that my platform wasn’t ‘Truth, Justice, and some other stuff’.”

Clark finally laughed. And held up the pan of bread, “Want some jalapeño fig bread? It’s the good kind of ‘other stuff’.”

“Actually it’s disgusting but I will support your right as an American to eat it.” 

“I like it,” said Bruce, “you just need the right proportions of whipped cream and custard on top and then it’s great.” 

Clark heard the noise that no one else heard and he winced. “Oh, I hate this new hearing thing, the Javelin is forty miles away. Oh, this blows.” Several people started packing up the food, they weren’t sure how long they would be at the Fortress but they had all taken notes from the Luthor-Kent handbook and decided eating was a good way of procrastinating. 

Lex looked towards the screen. He didn’t want to do this now, but he had to say something, and then he whispered directly into Clark’s ear, “Stop thinking about what the nightmare fodder faces told you. You never would have even considered deportation. I know they said it was an education but I think that’s bullshit. I think they were trying to frighten you. I would never have wanted you to go out in all this pain and they somehow made you think that it was a possibility. So please, baby, shut that out. You are mine, and you are good, and you’re human and deserve the rights of one.” He kissed Clark’s ear and pulled away. 

After blinking a few times Clark leaned in and whispered, “Lex, you’re freaking me out. You lied through your teeth when told me the AI wouldn’t let you be normal. While I’m sure there’s an explanation, right now, I don’t fully trust you. I love you and we’re not supposed to lie to each other.” Clark kissed Lex’s ear and lingered, “You know I love you. I’m not angry; I’m just freaked out.”

Lex turned and whispered, “You’re worst fear is everyone dying and you being alone. I could stop that, it didn’t matter that I was freaked, and I couldn’t make you feel guilty for it. So I lied through my teeth. You would have done the same for me. So, I’m sorry but I would do it again and I would lie again. Because this isn’t your fault but you would have blamed yourself if you knew I had a choice and I chose the option that benefited the team over the one. So don’t blame yourself, and don’t regret that things are the way they are. It might not be perfect, but I get you for the rest of our lives. Maybe, knowing that, you should be pleased that I had a choice. It’s not something you dragged me into. I’m sorry I lied, be angry if you like, but don’t be confused. I always want the best for you. So, please, stop thinking about it.” Out loud he said, “Okay?”

“I’ll try,” Clark nodded and then Diana walked into the room.

“Your fence just scanned my eye, my palm, my voice, and required a strand of my hair for DNA analysis. It then informed me that I need to eat more leafy greens and finally let me in.”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Lex, “new security. I had it put up two days ago. I’m trying to turn off the personal comments without compromising the safety.” He started handing her boxes of food. “We ready to go?” he asked Clark who nodded and Lex picked him up again. Though Clark could use his hands and pick up small things there was no way he was capable of supporting his weight and walking. The twelve of them including the dog tramped out to the yard. The Javelin was just outside the fence. Down at the security house at the mouth of the driveway there were dozens of reporters who were suddenly less afraid of Lex’s wrath now that Clark was back.

Clark looked at the journalists and photographers as the group walked into the plane. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t follow this.”

“I would be ashamed if you could, not ashamed of you, I would worry about where I had gone wrong as a parent if you were capable of trying to get quotes out of people in pain. There is no news here, it’s all being broadcast. If you blew up a town and wouldn’t give a reason I would hope people asked you to explain it. But this? This is just gawking; this is ambulance chasing.”

“Greg Mortesse is out there.” 

“No!” said Lois and Jimmy in unison. 

“Who’s Greg Mortesse?” asked John Stewart at their disgust. 

“Back when Clark and I covered all the town ordinance stuff, when the Chief wasn’t sure if he liked us, Jimmy was our photographer. Greg worked for Metro Times and was always on the same stories. So before we sat through mind numbing hours of town regulation hearings we would all go out to breakfast. And we would talk about what was on the agenda, ways to make it more interesting so that the public would actually pay attention, whether or not any of us would ever cover something big. Clark would then try to convince us that while it was dry it was important; we would all make fun of him: we had a rapport. I send him birthday cards with all of our names on it.”

“He’s off my holiday card list,” agreed Clark. They slipped into silence as the half of the alien screen that was showing Clark tied to a post now had a new voice. 

Lex had entered the picture. On his face it was evident that he and Clark weren’t close yet. Lex was confused, sad, perhaps afraid, not truly angry, at least, not because it was Clark but because someone had thought it was funny. He was untying Clark and clearly getting more and more distressed, he wanted to know who had done this, wanted to take Clark to a doctor, and then Lana’s necklace fell off and Clark was better and ran away because it was all too real, too embarrassing, and frightening. And then, suddenly the screen vanished. 

“Thanks for the respite,” muttered Lex.

Clark gave him a tired pain filled smile and released his seatbelt. “Can we talk in the back room?” 

“Of course,” said Lex unbuckling himself. He picked Clark up and placed him on his feet, there wasn’t enough room to carry him but he supported his weight into the back. He shut the door behind them and helped Clark to sit on one of the small chairs. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “not that I did it, I’m sorry I lied.”

Clark gave another grimace of a smile, “I know. It’s okay. That’s not why we needed to come back here. I just needed a minute with you. Everything hurts, Lex.” Lex reached out and gently framed Clark’s face with his hands. Clark allowed the hands to support the weight of his head. “All that shit they said, all those secrets I kept from my family, what must they think?”

“They aren’t mad,” Lex interjected. 

“No, but they must be hurt. I didn’t trust them.”

“Well, sometimes they didn’t give you a reason to.”

“Now I’m bringing them to the most alien part of me. I know it’s creepy. Even you can’t see it as normal.”

“That’s true; it’s very foreign. And it’s not even that. You’re comfortable there. Our brains can’t even understand it and it doesn’t faze you at all. That’s what unsettling about it.” He held Clark’s face so tenderly. “It is a part of you we don’t have the opportunity to understand. But there’s that computer that charades as Lara-El. That makes it more bearable. Because it thinks it knows you, but it knows fuck-all. And I know you, I might not have ever seen Krypton but I’ve seen the real Fortress of Solitude, slept in your barn, in that safe quiet place. So maybe if you point that out, talk about it before we get there, they won’t be thrown.”

“Yeah, maybe. You’ll hold my hand?”

“I’ll always hold your hand. I just wish I could kill those other universe bastards.”

“What? They aren’t from another universe. They’re in a different dimension, the ninth I think, that’s why they looked so frightening, like the sphere in Flatlands. Maybe, if we were from that dimension, they wouldn’t look odd. You didn’t realize that? It wasn’t alien, it was distortion.”

“Clark, remember that you’re cleverer than I am.”

“No, you’re the second most intelligent man on Earth.”

“You weren’t in the running; they didn’t think you were human. You are much cleverer than I am. Their scope was much too narrow… it’s the ninth dimension?”

“I think so.”

“We can stop them from ever entering our dimension again.”

“Do you have a disrupter charge?”

“Yeah, John knocked one together. Is there a laptop on this jet?”

“Lex, Bruce Wayne funds us. Do you really think he goes anywhere without one?” Lex smiled and helped Clark back into the cockpit.

Once he had Clark back in a seat he said, “Could someone hand me a laptop?” Diana pointed to the dashboard and Martha opened a compartment and pulled one out. “Thank you.” He pulled out a USB cord and linked it to the disrupter. Then he opened the source code for the disrupter and started to recalibrate it.

Looking over Lex’s shoulder Clark said, “No, that should be a four.”

“Really?”

“Logically, yes; realistically, I have no idea if this will work. But it’s a four.”

A screen popped into being and one of the creatures said, “Alexander Luthor, what are you doing?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the computer but still sneered as he said, “If you’re so clever you know already. I’m turning you off, and there’s nothing you can do.” Lex continued to type and then turned the computer to Clark. “What’s that line of code mean?”

“It’s a loop, on the broadcasts.” Clark looked at it, read it carefully, scrolled down, and finally said, “They’re going to reshow all this every four years for a day, I guess they’re into leap years. And there is no way to turn it off, not without breaking the whole code.”

“Damn,” Lex turned it back and kept typing, “With this power source that’s going to continue for thirty cycles, which is a hundred and twenty years. We can’t turn that off, can we?”

“You can’t,” answered the creature.

Pissed Lex said, “I’m not talking to you. I’m cutting this now.” He turned off the signal that the creatures were using. And the screen was gone again. “Step one,” muttered Lex. “We can’t turn off the loop, right?” 

“No. But this is better than nothing, they can’t come here. They can’t take people,” Clark said it softly, crouching in on himself. 

Lex leaned forward and kissed him gently. “I won’t let them.” He leaned back over the computer, typing. “I need an ion conductor.”

“We have one,” said John. “Bruce, can you open the compartment above your head?” Bruce pulled the small metal wand out as Lex pulled the back of the disrupter charge. 

He accepted the wand and touched it to the thin metal tip to the microchip John had used and the machine buzzed in Lex’s hand, “Don’t you dare.” He typed one more line of code and hit save and run. The whole craft shook a lit and Lex said, “Sorry, feedback wave. We’re now cut off from the ninth dimension. We can receive and transmit information between the two but there are no longer any possible physical gaps. On the upside, the Super Awesome Friends League of the United States of Justice now has a machine that will allow them to talk to the entire world should that need arise.” 

They settled back and Clark said, “Guys, before we get to the Fortress, I should warn you. It’s really, very, incredibly, exceedingly alien. Apparently the angles are wrong.” He frowned and realized that maybe he shouldn’t have suggested that he didn’t find them wrong. Lex held his hand while Ignatius rested his head on his knee. “Um… it’s all weird crystal. Things will morph to fit needs… there’s light from nowhere. What else? The computer is both opinionated and inhuman. It’s artificial intelligence but it doesn’t understand people. It has Lara-El’s imprint and believes it a realistic version of her but it doesn’t understand emotions. Mom, it might not like you that much even though I know Lara did because it thinks I’m its son. It is probably going to spray us all with disinfectant; it thinks this world’s dirty.”

“It won’t spray me,” said Lex menacingly.

“That’s because the one time it tried to you threatened to put your fist through it motherboard.”

“And I would have, if I could figure out where that might be. That was an expensive suit and it said I was a contaminant.”

“Yeah, um… it might talk about the superiority of Krypton. Kind of like a disappointed immigrant talking about the old world. You’re all totally safe. I just thought it best to give you the heads up. Up sides, up sides, up sides. Oh! You get freakishly good cell reception, better than most places. The chairs it makes are very comfy. Anything else?” he asked Lex.

“It’s roomy? And the light while unexplainable and thus sort of creepy is very flattering.”

“Only you would think about soft lighting. How did you sleep with a hundred and twenty-six women?” asked Clark shaking his head.

“By understanding soft lighting,” replied Lex with a smirk. And then they were touching down and John Stewart placed them in a green bubble and floated them inside.

They passed the statue that Clark never studied and then were in the main room.

A fog started to come down on them and Lex cleared with throat and the computer sucked it back up. “Better,” he said. 

“Ka-”

“Careful,” warned Lex, “you’ve been watching the same shit we have. So be careful what you call him.”

“-lark,” it finished as though it had been the noise of a “c”. “We need to begin. The longer the blessed rock of our planet remains in your bone the more it will meld with your marrow.”

“Can Lex come in with me?” He asked, clinging to his husband’s hand.

“I don’t see that as being a problem. The rest of your… family… and the dog need to stay here, in the main room.” Clark nodded and a door formed in the wall. 

He gave his family a brave smile. They were all looking unnerved by their surroundings. He said, “It’ll be okay.” Martha hugged him and he kissed her forehead, “I’ll be back soon, Mom.”

“The reversal should take two hours. Clark will be unconscious and in no pain so he won’t be fighting it. The clallachpeldassacrissalvacs drew it out for effect.”

“Is that what they’re called?” asked Lex.

“No, it’s a Kryptonian insult it means the foolish coward who dies upon his own sword,” said Clark, “Come on.” 

As they walked through the door way they were thoroughly soaked with the disinfectant. “God Damn!” shouted Lex.

“You reek of cigarettes and –Clark- reeks of illness; it’s a sterile room.” The door sealed behind them. “Clark, please sit on the table there.” It had a cushioned top and the pressure of sitting on it didn’t hurt. A panel opened in the wall, “Lex Luthor, place the mask over your nose and mouth. I don’t want to inundate you’re veins with drugs, Clark.” A fine mist settled in the room. “Lie back, count down from thirty.” 

He started in English, as the drug started to muddle his mind he slipped into German, than what Lex recognized as Kryptonian, finally he drifted out. Instruments came from the ceiling and the computer asked, “Will you be alright?”

“You do what you have to; tell me when you need me to move to his other side.” 

The machine cut off his clothes, sliced him open, pulled back the skin, and started on his bones. A hot laser melted the Kryptonite and a suction tube moved in and sucked it away leaving bone marrow. A salve like, viscous substance replaced the stone. “It will act as a healing agent until he can bathe in the light of this planet.” Then the laser sealed his bones and fused his flesh seamlessly. The machines worked their way across Clark’s prone body. Finally the AI said, “I need you to move to his other side. Don’t hold his hand too firmly, he is tender, and the pressure might cause him to bruise.” 

Lex did as he was instructed. He asked no questions as he did not want to distract the machine. He held Clark gently. It was nowhere near as bad as the first surgery. It was fast, efficient, and Clark wasn’t screaming in pain. After what seemed like only minutes the computer said, “We’ll move him into the master bedroom and I’ll flood it with an approximation of Earth light.” The table moved, through another appearing door, and into the main suite. The light did feel like the sun. The table lowered moved to the bed, and gently shrugged Clark onto it. The sheets moved over him and the computer said, “I shall tell the others that they can come in.”

“Thank you.”

“Lex Luthor, you have never thanked me for anything.”

“You have never before done anything worthy of thanks.” He sat down heavily on the bed and stroked Clark’s hair. 

A door appeared and Martha came in followed by everyone, including a man in full costume Lex had never seen. Ignatius jumped on to the bed and curled up between his two masters. 

“Lex,” said John, “This is Bloodwynd, he’s going to fix your legs.”

“Thank you, Bloodwynd, that’s most kind of you.”

“I like Clark; he is calm” he said in a voice that lacked intonation. “Stretch out your legs, please.”

John gave Lex a rather fake bright smile, “Ready, man?” Lex nodded and the green legs were replaced with his real ones. His feet were dangling off, held on by skin and tissue. 

“This will hurt,” said Bloodwynd. Lex wasn’t sure if it was a warning or a commiseration, there was no inflection. 

“Go for it.” Lex gritted his teeth and stopped touching Clark incase his hands clenched. Bloodwynd firmly held Lex’s thigh, pushing things back into place and instantly fusing the bones. “Oh, oh, that’s not pleasant.”

“Diana screams when I do this, you may if you need to, it does not distract me.”

“I’m good,” Lex flinched, “she’s a wuss.” He said grimacing a smile in her direction.

Bloodwyne finished one leg and asked, “Do you want a moment?”

“No, no, I’m good. It would be wonderful if you kept going.”

Bloodwyne narrowed his eyes and Bruce said, “No one likes a hero.”

“Bruce, you run around in a cape, so shut your face. Bloodwyne, please keep going. Are your parents Welsh?”

“It’s a pun. It’s not a bastardization; it’s code. I still have a secret identity.” Lex nodded, breathing through his nose, if he opened his mouth he was going to scream. After several moments Bloodwyne said, “There: done.” 

“Thank you, thank you for coming here and doing this for me.”

“Most people punch me when we’re through.”

“No, I’m not going to do that. Would you like something to drink or anything?”

“I would like you to sit back, not put any weight on those legs for two hours, and to say hello to Clark when he’s awake. Now I’m going to leave.” He walked out silently.

“I don’t get it,” said Lex shaking his head. “Is he joking?”

“No, no, that’s the way he is.” Bruce shrugged, “He’s… um… well, he keeps very neutral in everything… He plays it close to the breast; we didn’t even know he could heal like that until a few months ago. He um… he likes Clark, respects him… he just doesn’t take a stance on much.”

Clark started to come around. “‘M wake.”

“You sure? Because you don’t need to be” said Lex.

“Oh good, you’re legs are back,” Clark rearranged himself so he was half draped over Lex’s lap. There was a clear tone of drunken mirth in his voice. “Y’know that theory of Nirvana? Where you go out into the hottest dessert and climb into a painful, thorny bush, and you bake in the sun, freeze in the night, starve, and bleed, and weep, and then after a month you climb out and go home and the lack of pain is the first time you understand happiness? I am sooo there. Like, this isn’t, like a lack of pain, this isn’t feeling better, this is feeling perfect. Like, not having the kryptonite leeching into my blood via my bones feels like heaven. And I get that I’ve had years of not-having-kryptonite sensation but, like, it’s never been something I really appreciated. Like, call up Brainiac and have him smash my face in again because that’s gonna be like a birthday present after this, that’s gonna be like awesome and stuff.”

“Clark, you’re stoned,” Lex ran his fingers through his hair.

“Yeah, but when I come off of whatever the AI pumped me full of I’m still gonna be floating.” He turned slightly and saw everyone around the bed and said, “Why are you standing?” Chairs morphed up from the floor. “I don’t think I’m gonna be upright for a while yet. Y’know what I could kill? A pancake taco.”

“I made all that stuff last night,” said Lex, “I’ll go get you one.” He started to stand but couldn’t really move his legs. 

Lana stood, “I’ll go get it. All the fixings?”

“Please,” said Clark.

“How many do you want?”

“Three. Thanks, Lana.” To Lex he asked, “How long were you cooking?”

“Twelve hours… until we ran out of coffee.”

“What have you all been doing? How were all the meetings for the technology conference? Lois, you were covering right? Anything really cool?”

“Clark,” she said slowly, “everything ground to a halt the minute they started broadcasting. There weren’t any meetings. No one can concentrate right now. The whole world has been watching you.”

“Well, other than this horror show what’s up what’s going on, how are all my nieces and nephews?”

“You only have one niece,” Bruce said gently. 

Clark sent a covert apologetic look to Lois. But, stoned as he was, the whole room saw and Jimmy said, “It’s okay, CK, she told me last night.”

“Oh thank goodness. I mean I’m stoned but that would have been the social gaff of the century.” The few people in the room who didn’t already know started congratulating and hugging Lois. And the conversation turned to the Ross boys, Cecily nearly getting expelled. 

The AI broke into the conversation, “See, K-lark,” it caught itself, “you love those children. I don’t see why-” 

“Bro,” the word was drawn out, “do we need to have this conversation again?”

“There are eggs with replicas of your DNA, the Fortress could incubate them, you and Lex Luthor could have children.”

“It’s sick, some weird chimera, this freakishness should end with me. How long would that kid have to live? Does the kid have to watch everyone die? Does he have to hide growing up? Nah, yo. It’s wrong.”

Bruce tried to break the mood saying, “On drugs you sound like Flash.”

“Clark, you can continue the Kryptonian line.”

“Maybe I don’t want to!” He pulled himself further into Lex, as though he could crawl inside the other man and be away from the words. He kept Ignatius on his lap as though the dog and Lex could protect him. “I got lucky; I got to Earth, my family, my life but I’m not sure I would be willing to inflict it upon some kid. The El’s did what they had to and they got me to Mom and Dad and I’m glad, I’m not sad about my life. But it’s weird. And it sucks to understand a building that creeps out all your friends. Being different isn’t cool. And then Jor-El tries to make you take over the world and it’s all shit. No, I’m not ready to do that.”

“As you’re mother, Kal-”

“You’re not my mother and that’s not my name. Now be quiet.” 

Martha came and sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around him. He was cocooned between her and Lex. Thinking better of her squeeze she asked, “Am I hurting you?”

“No, I feel good. The computer’s just harshing my mellow. Like, we should have drug parties I don’t know why I’ve never done drugs before. They’re awesome.”

“No more late night iced-mochas with Wally,” John agreed with Bruce. 

Lana came in handed off tacos and said, “You’re computer’s a bitch. You shouldn’t make any decisions because something pressures you.” Sometimes Clark hated it when Lana came out with trite advice she thought was profound but he appreciated the effort. He ate the tacos quietly, not making eye contact. He felt useless and ashamed. The conversation washed over him. All he concentrated on was the food and his mother’s and Lex’s arms around him.

Clark rested his face against Lex’s collar and all the pressure, pain, and relief were suddenly pouring silently out of him. And he was crying, silent and motionless into his husband’s neck. Martha noticed while the rest of the room was unaware and said in a soft voice, “He’s asleep and I think we should let Lex get some rest, come on.” Clark felt her squeeze his arm lightly before standing.

The AI said, “I’ll show you a film, views of Krypton, it’s what Clark watched on his way to Earth.”

With a harsh edge Martha said, “That would be lovely, thank you.” 

Once they were gone Lex said, “Crashing sucks doesn’t it? That was a bit fast. I thought the euphoria would last a little longer.”

“I wish I was normal,” said Clark softly. “I wish this didn’t happen. I wish the press wasn’t at our house. I wish Mom wasn’t here. But this right now? It feels good.” He started stroking his own face, fingers dragging over flesh slowly and repetitively. 

“I see, not a crash, a plateau.”

“I’m sorry I worry you. But I’m glad you love me and I don’t care that you’ve slept with, like, a billion people ‘cause you only love me. And I think I might quit being a superhero, there are lots now. I think I’ll just do really big things, like huge things. And I’ll bring the HIV meds. And I’m sorry I stopped you from curing cancer, I’m really sorry about that. And I love your mouth and its scar and its sneer.”

Lex kissed him slowly, “My mouth is always yours. I wouldn’t change what I did back then, it wouldn’t even have been passed. Nothing would have come of it. And, as for super-business, you do whatever makes you happy.”

“I want off of the active roster. I just want to do the little stuff, the easy things, I want to be free range again, I just want to do things when I want to and not the big stuff. It’s not even the pain; it’s people knowing about it. I feel like stupid and awkward now.” He trailed off and started pulling at his finger nails. And was silent but clearly hadn’t finished the thought. “Do you think people will be mad if I stop?” 

“After the last few days, no one will object to it. Now they see you as a person not just a hero. They cannot be upset at you wanting some time for yourself.” He cradled Clark close to himself. “You really think you’ll stop?”

“I want to, and I want to spend more time at the farm, just being at home on the land, doing good stuff that pays off in the long run. Like farming… stuff. I want to spend my early morning and lunchtime at the farm, then come home and run on the beach with Ignatius, then go on any international trips, and then come home and spend the night with you. Every once in a while I want to spend days at a time in the Fortress doing science projects. That’s what I want to do. That would be good.” 

“That sounds fantastic, Clark. I like that idea. It makes my life a lot less worry filled.”

“You’re a real live worry doll.” Clark rubbed his hands against Lex’s skull like he really was imbuing Lex with his troubles. “I think I’m sobering up… my legs are a little sore now. Plus, I’m starting to feel uncomfortable about the fact that I’m naked and my whole family was in here. ‘Cause that’s uncomfortable,” he stumbled over the last word.

“You were under the sheets.” A knock came at the door and Lex said, “You want me to send them away?”

“No, But I wish I was less naked.” 

Lex looked down at his stained white t-shirt and pulled it off, “Here’s it’s loose on me so it might be a little tight but it’ll fit.” Clark pulled it over his head and Lex called, “Come in.” 

A door appeared with no one in it and then Pete stepped slowly into view, “The door didn’t appear where I thought it would.”

“Don’t look at the walls for too long: there’re four of them but they all meet at obtuse angles,” Lex smiled. “What’s up, Pete?”

“A lot actually. Cell phone reception up here really is amazing. I just had three odd conversations. First of all, the President called.”

“President of what?” asked Clark.

“The President of the United States of America. He says he’s taken matters in hand and you’ll have citizenship before midnight. He said not to worry about any written tests or anything because of your college minor in US history. Then the Speaker of the House called, having heard from the President, and said that congress will be making it a law that you cannot be ever asked, forced, or coerced into ever participating in a war or cause on behalf of the country or asked to submit to medical testing. You may still of course ask for testing for your own benefit: Lex’s IV bags won’t get him in trouble. Finally the Secretary-General of the UN called, every country involved and many that aren’t would like to give you honorary citizenship. It’s two hundred and fifteen all together.

“Those counties also stated that you do not have to agree to their politics but instead are offering it to you because of work you’ve done for their people. For instance Sudan has offered citizenship and you’ve spoken about the political unrest there many times but have always helped their people. Also your citizenship to all these countries is not contingent upon anything. They said that you don’t need to do anything, nothing is expected of you, this is in recognition of all the work you have done not future actions. Your US citizenship paper will be at your house by tomorrow afternoon and a list of the countries that want to offer you citizenship has been faxed to the house.

“Also, the media has been all over this. But not in the way you might think. Everyone who has been trying to cover this has been fired and black listed. All of the printed, radio transmitted, and televised media have been saying that it’s disgusting, somewhat reminiscent of the night Princess Diana died, and shows a lack of morality. They said that you will give a statement when and if you want to and people should leave you alone after your ordeal.

“Finally, a lot of students disagreed with your statement that the story on Jerardie was the only important thing you ever wrote. They pointed out your editorial on being Superman and its consequence. They recognized that as an editorial it was in a different category. While acknowledging that, it may be true that the Jerardie piece could be argued to be your only significant piece of pure journalism, it’s like saying that Harper Lee only wrote To Kill a Mocking Bird. So that’s what’s going on.”

“I’m half naked,” Clark observed after a few moments silence.

Pete shrugged, “Metaphorically, we all are, all the time. I wouldn’t worry that you aren’t wearing pants. I’d be much more ashamed if I was Lex: I can see his nipples whereas I can’t see your crotch.”

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you get Chloe and Lois? I want to make my statement.”


End file.
